Pass an emergency moratorium on AI data centers in Butte County cities/towns
The Issue
We humbly request the City Council of Chico, Oroville, Biggs, Gridley and the Town of Paradise Town Council to adopt emergency ordinances to prevent AI data centers from being built due to the harm they can cause. The community is clear. We do not want AI data centers.
I kept reading stories from other towns and thinking: that could happen here, and we wouldn't hear about it until it was done. So I looked at our zoning codes. None of them define what a data center is.
That means if one were ever proposed here, under my interpretation, whether it's allowed would come down to a staff official deciding which existing category it most resembles. Not a council vote. Not a public hearing. An interpretation. Our codes were written before these facilities existed, but that means we need to update them.
What we're asking for:
Pause it. Adopt an interim urgency ordinance under California Government Code § 65858 - a four-fifths vote, effective immediately, holding approvals for 45 days while real rules are written. https://law.justia.com/codes/california/code-gov/title-7/division-1/chapter-4/article-2/section-65858/
Then prohibit them. Direct staff to bring back permanent zoning amendments that define "AI data center facility," and list it as not allowed in any zoning district in any of our towns.
And make it a permanent real decision. Whatever our officials decide, it should happen at a public hearing, on the record, with residents there. Not through an interpretation none of us would know to look for.
Nobody's asking anyone to turn down a project. There isn't one. I'm asking that we write the rules before we need them instead of after.
Please sign this petition, and then email your council.
(make sure to send this as BCC in your email client if you want them all to receive individual emails)
City of Chico:
kasey.reynolds@chicoca.gov, dale.bennett@chicoca.gov, addison.winslow@chicoca.gov, tom.vanoverbeek@chicoca.gov, mike.obrien@chicoca.gov, katie.hawley@chicoca.gov, bryce.goldstein@chicoca.gov
City of Oroville:
dpittman@cityoforoville.org, esmith@cityoforoville.org, tjohnstone@cityoforoville.org, jgoodson@cityoforoville.org, sthomson@cityoforoville.org, swebber@cityoforoville.org, creynolds@cityoforoville.org
Town Council of Paradise:
scrowder@townofparadise.com, moesteve@comcast.net, gbolin@townofparadise.com, hlange@townofparadise.com, rlassonde@townofparadise.com
City of Biggs:
bos@biggs-ca.gov, douglas.arnold@biggs-ca.gov, Jerome.squires@biggs-ca.gov,
anita.wilks@biggs-ca.gov, zachbrown@biggs-ca.gov
City of Gridley:
bjohnson@gridley.ca.us, jacalderon@gridley.ca.us, csanchez@gridley.ca.us
mfarr@gridley.ca.us, jroberts@gridley.ca.us
Subject: Please agendize a § 65858 AI data center moratorium.
What's happened in towns that got them:
Public reporting on one proposed facility in Imperial County put it at roughly 750,000 gallons a day, with electricity demand approaching double what that entire county used in 2024. https://www.kpbs.org/news/politics/2026/06/17/after-months-of-public-pressure-imperial-county-passes-temporary-moratorium-on-data-centers
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29042026/california-data-center-boom-water-issues/
Noise that never stops. In Dowagiac, Michigan, neighbors are suing an AI data center in a class action claiming more than 1,300 homes are affected. One mother living across the street said she can't sit outside without getting a headache, her toddler's nursery faces the facility.
Health. Neighbors report headaches, nausea, ear pain, disrupted sleep. Researchers point to low-frequency noise that ordinary town noise rules were never written to catch.
https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/communities-are-raising-noise-pollution-concernsabout-data-centers
A 2026 study modeled these facilities pushing wholesale power costs up 6–29% nationally, and as much as 57% in the hardest-hit regions by 2030. https://news.ncsu.edu/2026/05/data-centers-power-bills/
Why here, and why right now
Our groundwater is already tight enough that Butte County is drafting a Well Ordinance and a Drought Resilience Plan this year. https://www.buttecounty.net/1117/Water-Resource-Conservation
And the County has said publicly that no data center application has been received yet.
That's not a reason to wait, that's a reason to act, right now.
Imperial County passed a moratorium in June and extended it in July, but only after a project was already moving, and a developer announced a lawsuit almost immediately. When there's no applicant, there's nobody to fight. https://calexicochronicle.com/2026/07/15/imperial-county-extends-data-center-moratorium/ https://calmatters.org/environment/2026/06/imperial-county-data-center/
This reflects the views of its signers and is not legal advice.
523
The Issue
We humbly request the City Council of Chico, Oroville, Biggs, Gridley and the Town of Paradise Town Council to adopt emergency ordinances to prevent AI data centers from being built due to the harm they can cause. The community is clear. We do not want AI data centers.
I kept reading stories from other towns and thinking: that could happen here, and we wouldn't hear about it until it was done. So I looked at our zoning codes. None of them define what a data center is.
That means if one were ever proposed here, under my interpretation, whether it's allowed would come down to a staff official deciding which existing category it most resembles. Not a council vote. Not a public hearing. An interpretation. Our codes were written before these facilities existed, but that means we need to update them.
What we're asking for:
Pause it. Adopt an interim urgency ordinance under California Government Code § 65858 - a four-fifths vote, effective immediately, holding approvals for 45 days while real rules are written. https://law.justia.com/codes/california/code-gov/title-7/division-1/chapter-4/article-2/section-65858/
Then prohibit them. Direct staff to bring back permanent zoning amendments that define "AI data center facility," and list it as not allowed in any zoning district in any of our towns.
And make it a permanent real decision. Whatever our officials decide, it should happen at a public hearing, on the record, with residents there. Not through an interpretation none of us would know to look for.
Nobody's asking anyone to turn down a project. There isn't one. I'm asking that we write the rules before we need them instead of after.
Please sign this petition, and then email your council.
(make sure to send this as BCC in your email client if you want them all to receive individual emails)
City of Chico:
kasey.reynolds@chicoca.gov, dale.bennett@chicoca.gov, addison.winslow@chicoca.gov, tom.vanoverbeek@chicoca.gov, mike.obrien@chicoca.gov, katie.hawley@chicoca.gov, bryce.goldstein@chicoca.gov
City of Oroville:
dpittman@cityoforoville.org, esmith@cityoforoville.org, tjohnstone@cityoforoville.org, jgoodson@cityoforoville.org, sthomson@cityoforoville.org, swebber@cityoforoville.org, creynolds@cityoforoville.org
Town Council of Paradise:
scrowder@townofparadise.com, moesteve@comcast.net, gbolin@townofparadise.com, hlange@townofparadise.com, rlassonde@townofparadise.com
City of Biggs:
bos@biggs-ca.gov, douglas.arnold@biggs-ca.gov, Jerome.squires@biggs-ca.gov,
anita.wilks@biggs-ca.gov, zachbrown@biggs-ca.gov
City of Gridley:
bjohnson@gridley.ca.us, jacalderon@gridley.ca.us, csanchez@gridley.ca.us
mfarr@gridley.ca.us, jroberts@gridley.ca.us
Subject: Please agendize a § 65858 AI data center moratorium.
What's happened in towns that got them:
Public reporting on one proposed facility in Imperial County put it at roughly 750,000 gallons a day, with electricity demand approaching double what that entire county used in 2024. https://www.kpbs.org/news/politics/2026/06/17/after-months-of-public-pressure-imperial-county-passes-temporary-moratorium-on-data-centers
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29042026/california-data-center-boom-water-issues/
Noise that never stops. In Dowagiac, Michigan, neighbors are suing an AI data center in a class action claiming more than 1,300 homes are affected. One mother living across the street said she can't sit outside without getting a headache, her toddler's nursery faces the facility.
Health. Neighbors report headaches, nausea, ear pain, disrupted sleep. Researchers point to low-frequency noise that ordinary town noise rules were never written to catch.
https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/communities-are-raising-noise-pollution-concernsabout-data-centers
A 2026 study modeled these facilities pushing wholesale power costs up 6–29% nationally, and as much as 57% in the hardest-hit regions by 2030. https://news.ncsu.edu/2026/05/data-centers-power-bills/
Why here, and why right now
Our groundwater is already tight enough that Butte County is drafting a Well Ordinance and a Drought Resilience Plan this year. https://www.buttecounty.net/1117/Water-Resource-Conservation
And the County has said publicly that no data center application has been received yet.
That's not a reason to wait, that's a reason to act, right now.
Imperial County passed a moratorium in June and extended it in July, but only after a project was already moving, and a developer announced a lawsuit almost immediately. When there's no applicant, there's nobody to fight. https://calexicochronicle.com/2026/07/15/imperial-county-extends-data-center-moratorium/ https://calmatters.org/environment/2026/06/imperial-county-data-center/
This reflects the views of its signers and is not legal advice.
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Petition created on August 3, 2026