Ashville, Ohio Put a Data Center Deal on the Ballot. The Ohio Supreme Court Made It Possible by Reading One Paragraph.

The decision is short, unanimous in result on the two points it reached, and narrow on purpose. The court framed its conclusion in two parts: that Resolution No. 06-2026 does not contain sufficiently specific reasons for the village council to have passed it as an emergency measure, and that the fiscal officer does not have the discretionary authority to determine whether the resolution was an administrative action.

On the first point, R.C. 731.30 lets a municipal legislative authority put a measure into immediate effect as an emergency if it is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety, on a two thirds vote, and provides that the reasons for such necessity shall be set forth in one section of the measure. Resolution No. 06-2026 had such a section. It declared the measure an emergency immediately necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health, and safety of the municipality and for the further reason that council needed to accept the terms as soon as possible so the project would not be unnecessarily delayed.

The court took those two reasons apart in a paragraph. The first, it said, merely parrots the language of R.C. 731.30. The second could broadly apply to almost any emergency measure, since all emergency measures are presumably designated as such because commencement of the underlying matter should not be delayed. What the resolution never did was explain why waiting the ordinary 30 days for it to take effect would unnecessarily delay the project. It did not say a delay would increase project costs. It did not point to anything like the lateness of a construction season. Measured against the court's own precedent, it contained even less detail than an emergency clause the court had already found insufficient. The conclusion: the resolution contains only conclusory statements that fail to apprise voters of any specific reasons to declare the measure to be an emergency.

The second holding is the one other Ohio communities should copy into a letter. The fiscal officer had also refused to certify on the ground that the resolution was administrative rather than legislative, writing to the board that it did not create any law or regulation and instead approved a term sheet between the village and EdgeConneX. The court held that call was not hers to make. Whether an action of a municipality is legislative or administrative is a judicial question, it said, and beyond the limited discretionary authority of a municipal official. Village clerks and city auditors exceed that authority by deciding it, and municipal officials should not attempt to short circuit the process by deciding the issues themselves.

This is a description of the statutory process, not legal advice, and Ohio counsel should confirm how it applies to any particular village or city.

The power itself comes from the Ohio Constitution. Article II, Section 1f reserves the initiative and referendum powers to the people of each municipality on all questions which such municipalities may now or hereafter be authorized by law to control by legislative action. Note the last two words. The constitutional reservation runs to legislative action only, which is why the legislative versus administrative line decides so many of these fights.

The mechanics live in R.C. 731.29 through 731.41. Within 30 days after a measure is passed by the legislative authority of a village, proponents file a petition with the village clerk signed by at least 35 percent of the number of electors who voted for governor at the most recent general election. In Ashville that worked out to 498 signatures. The clerk transmits the petition to the county board of elections for signature validation, a duty the court describes as mandatory and ministerial. If the board finds enough valid signatures it returns the petition to the clerk, who exercises limited discretionary authority to determine sufficiency and validity before certifying it back. The board then submits the referendum to the electors at the next general election occurring more than 90 days after certification, but only if the board itself determines the petition is sufficient and valid.

Ashville had assigned the clerk's duties to its village fiscal officer. So the sequence ran: petition submitted to the village on May 5, 2026; board of elections notified the fiscal officer on May 22 that it carried 669 verified signatures; and on June 26 the fiscal officer wrote to the board that she had determined the petition insufficient and invalid, on the two grounds above. Three electors filed their verified complaint in mandamus on July 14, the court ordered an expedited response, and it decided the case on August 7.

One date is worth writing down. Under R.C. 731.29 the deadline to certify petitions for the November 3, 2026 ballot was August 5, and it passed while the petition sat uncertified. The court held that because the delay was unjustified, the relators were still entitled to a writ compelling certification for the November 2026 ballot. The clock running out is not automatically the end, but you have to be in court about it.

The court was explicit that it was not deciding the big question. It granted the writ, denied the fiscal officer's motion for judgment on the pleadings, and said it expressed no opinion regarding whether the resolution was an administrative action that is not subject to referendum. It noted that boards of elections have discretion to decide which actions are administrative and which are legislative, and a duty to keep referendums of administrative actions off the ballot.

The test Ohio courts apply asks whether a body is creating or changing law and policy, which is legislative, or carrying out law that already exists, which is administrative. Applying existing rules to one project can be administrative. Establishing a new policy stays legislative even when carrying it out uses powers the body already had.

Here is why the record makes that genuinely contestable. The village had adopted a 180 day moratorium on new data center development in December 2025, after months of packed meetings. According to the court's description of the term summary attached to Resolution No. 06-2026, one of four provisions that appear to set forth a binding agreement is the village council's agreement that the previously enacted data center moratorium does not apply to the EdgeConneX project and, to the extent necessary, is suspended with respect to it. The resolution also repeals all prior legislation inconsistent with it, as to the inconsistent parts. Petition supporters read that as a change in village policy, and therefore legislative. The village's position has been that council approved a single development under authority it already held.

The other three binding provisions the court identified are ordinary contract terms: EdgeConneX must give the village the reports it files with the Power Siting Board; EdgeConneX pays the village's engineering review and legal costs plus between $50,000 and $100,000 for the village to engage professional advisors; and the village agrees to use best efforts to approve required permits, so long as applications comply with village building permit requirements.

What the court says is proposed: two single story data center buildings and a natural gas power generating facility in Ashville, on property owned by EdgeConneX MCN Ashville Properties 1, L.L.C. Local reporting on the proposal council considered in March 2026 described roughly 195 acres, a behind the meter natural gas energy facility requiring Ohio Power Siting Board approval, and a village water commitment of 50,000 gallons per day by May 31, 2027. We have not seen a sourced megawatt figure for the campus, and we are not going to estimate one.

The money was the argument for it. Village materials reported at the time described up to $64 million to the Teays Valley School District for capital improvements, contingent on school board support for the energy facility, up to $3 million to the township fire department, and up to $35 million held in escrow for water, sewer, and road upgrades, with a further roughly $74 million tied to a voluntary annexation of 486 acres. Ashville also has a separate infrastructure problem: its water treatment plant dates to 1935 with a 1970 expansion, and Ohio EPA concluded that the aging plant, rather than the data center, was the primary driver of a replacement project.

The generation runs on a track the village does not control. PowerConneX, Inc. has an application before the Ohio Power Siting Board for a natural gas fired generating facility in Pickaway County, Case No. 26-196-EL-BGN, reported filed August 10, 2026 and superseding a July 31 filing. Reporting on that filing describes pledged payments of up to $77,440,000 to the school district, up to $35,000,000 in an infrastructure escrow, and up to $3,000,000 to the township fire department, released after a final, non appealable certificate for the energy center and final certificates of occupancy for the data center, and not owed if the village opposes, objects to, or intervenes against the application, if the certificate is denied or the application withdrawn, or if the project meets unreasonable municipal delays or targeting through restrictive local ordinances.

EdgeConneX participated in the case and its position is in the record. Both EdgeConneX, Inc., a signatory to the term summary, and EdgeConneX MCN Ashville Properties 1, L.L.C., the property owner, moved to intervene as respondents, and the court granted intervention, citing its practice of allowing property owners to intervene in writ cases where electors seek referendums on ordinances concerning their property. Through counsel at Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease, the companies filed an answer and a motion for judgment on the pleadings, arguing that even if the fiscal officer had exceeded her discretion, the writ should be denied because granting it would be a vain act if the resolution was an administrative action. The court denied that motion and declined to reach the vain act question this early in the election cycle. Nothing in the decision is a finding of wrongdoing by any company. It is a ruling about what a village official may and may not decide.

We checked the EdgeConneX newsroom on September 3, 2026 and found no statement about Ashville, Pickaway County, the referendum, or PowerConneX. We were not able to obtain a verifiable company statement, and we are not going to characterize the company's position beyond what its filings say.

Two more things we could not confirm from a record we fetched. First, the exact certified ballot language. The Circleville Herald reported on August 26, 2026 that the Pickaway County Board of Elections voted unanimously to place the Ashville referendum on the November ballot; that article did not load for us on September 3, 2026, and the county board of elections page carries no certified issue list. Second, the Ohio Power Siting Board docket itself. The state's docketing information system at dis.puc.state.oh.us rejected our requests, so everything above about Case No. 26-196-EL-BGN comes from local reporting on the filing rather than from the filing.

If a council near you is about to approve a data center agreement, the Ashville sequence is the one to copy:

• Read the last section of the measure before the vote. An emergency clause is not boilerplate. In Ohio it removes the measure from the referendum process the moment it passes, and the reasons must be specific and inside the measure itself.
• Ask what the emergency is, on the record. Ashville's residents won because the resolution's own words could not answer that question. A council that has to state a specific reason often cannot.
• Count the signature threshold from the right election. In an Ohio village it is 35 percent of the number of electors who voted for governor at the most recent general election, and the petition window is 30 days from passage. Deadlines, not arguments, kill most of these efforts.
• Do not accept a clerk's legal conclusion as the end. Mandamus is the standard Ohio route for compelling an official to perform a duty the law requires, and it is the same procedural family as the citizen suit tools we describe elsewhere. It moves fast because election deadlines do not wait.
• Get your objection into the record early. Standing and preservation questions in later challenges usually turn on whether you were heard at the administrative level.

Ohio is producing more of these than any other state right now. Court News Ohio reported that on September 1, 2026 the Supreme Court of Ohio decided State ex rel. Blankenship v. Trenton City Council, No. 2026-1035, holding that a charter amendment petition to prohibit data center construction needed signatures from 10 percent of voters who cast ballots in the last municipal general election rather than 10 percent of registered voters, and ordering a special election. Different city, different statute, same instinct.

Our guide to fighting a proposed data center covers the approval sequence, and our zoning appeal deadlines guide explains why an administrative decision and a legislative act run on different tracks. Ohio's other documented fights are the Wilmington notice case and the AEP Ohio data center tariff appeals, and our Ohio page collects the rest. If a facility near you is already running and the problem is noise, dust, or water rather than process, start with our evidence guide, then get a legal read: our free case review connects you with an independent attorney in our network handling data center matters in Ohio.