City of Edgerton v. Its Own Residents: The Kansas Lawsuit to Kill a Citizen Data Center Ban

Edgerton sits at the southwest edge of the Kansas City metro and is best known for Logistics Park Kansas City, the sprawling industrial district built around the BNSF Railway intermodal facility. In 2026, DAMAC Digital Solutions Kansas, LLC moved to convert an existing building in the park into a data center. On July 16, the City Council approved the site plan on appeal, 4 to 0.

The day before that vote, on July 15, residents filed a citizen initiative petition proposing an ordinance to ban high-impact data centers in the city. The petition's stated purposes were to prevent industrial nuisances, protect residents' property, and preserve the city's municipal resource capacity. Under Kansas law, a valid initiative petition with sufficient signatures forces the governing body either to adopt the ordinance or to put it to the voters. The Johnson County Election Office verified the signatures as sufficient. The county's legal department confirmed the petition conformed to state requirements.

That left the city with three options: adopt the ban, hold the election, or go to court. It chose court.

Edgerton's complaint does not argue that residents have no right to petition. It argues that this petition is legally void because its factual premises are false, and a ballot measure that misleads voters about what the city controls cannot lawfully proceed. The city lists its objections point by point:

• Water. The city does not provide water to Logistics Park; Rural Water District No. 7 does. A petition premised on protecting the city's water capacity, the city says, misstates who supplies it.
• Power. The city does not own or operate an electric utility; Evergy provides power. The same objection applies.
• The application. The city says it has received no application for new data center construction; the DAMAC project converts an existing building.
• Zoning. Data center uses have been permitted under the city's zoning since a determination in April 2025, so the ban would reverse an existing entitlement.
• Logic. The proposed ordinance would exempt other industrial projects with greater water and power demands than a data center, which the city calls illogical.

The relief sought is narrow in form and sweeping in effect: a declaratory judgment that the petition is void and invalid, and a permanent injunction blocking the ordinance from a vote or passage. City Attorney Todd Luckman emphasized that the city is not asking for any financial compensation, attorney's fees, or monetary damages from the residents it sued. No hearing date had been set as of the filing.

The named defendants, Carrie Schmidt, Kimberly Twente, and the Public Trust Collective, are the organizers of a petition that gathered enough verified signatures in a city of a few thousand people to force the question. Their position, in local reporting, is that the city is using litigation to stop a vote it might lose, and that the questions the petition raises, about nuisance, property, and resource capacity, belong to the voters regardless of which utility holds the contract.

The fight fits a national pattern that has moved fast in 2026. Local moratoriums and bans have spread to 40 states, and the industry and its allies have begun suing to overturn them: a lawsuit forced Hill County, Texas to rescind its moratorium within weeks; developers are litigating bans in Smithfield, Rhode Island and Lordstown, Ohio, the latter now at the Ohio Supreme Court; and a Kentucky industrial group sued Cave City over its pause. Edgerton is the mirror image, a city acting preemptively against its own residents' ban, and our moratorium tracker follows the whole wave. Elsewhere in Kansas, Saline County has adopted a three year moratorium and Riley and Sedgwick counties have paused as well.

If you are organizing a petition, referendum, or ballot measure on data centers, Edgerton is the case that shows how a city can fight back, and how to petition-proof your effort:

• Get every fact right. The city's entire case is that the petition misstated who supplies water and power. Confirm utility providers, zoning status, and pending applications from public records before you draft.
• Draft the ordinance narrowly and consistently. The city's logic objection, that the ban exempts heavier industrial users, is the kind of drafting gap a court may weigh.
• Expect litigation and budget for it. The county verified the petition and the city sued anyway. Organizers named as defendants need counsel even when, as here, no damages are sought.
• Know the timeline. A petition filed the day before a site plan approval is a petition that arrived late. Watch council agendas from the first rumor of a project.

Our guide to fighting a proposed data center covers moratoriums, petitions, and the approval process. If a project is already moving near you and the fight has turned legal, our free case review connects you with an independent attorney in our network who handles data center cases in your state, at no cost and with no obligation.