This story was first published at KCRW.Last December, residents of Monterey Park, a city just east of downtown Los Angeles, started organizing against a proposed 218,000 sq. ft. data center. While the city was in favor of the project because of the $5 million in tax revenue it was supposed to bring in each year, residents were more concerned about what it would be taking out: a lot of water, for one, and enough electricity to power 40,000 homes.“That's twice the entire city of Monterey Park per year, just coming from this one site,” said Hrag Balian, one of the organizers of No Data Center Monterey Park. “We filled the council chambers,” said another organizer, Steven Kung, “and we basically told them that if they moved forward with the data center, we would vote them out of office.”After months of rallies and public meetings, the city reversed course. In April, the council approved an ordinance banning data centers, and then it put the issue on the June ballot. That passed with 88% of the vote. Kung said their local act of resistance suddenly became national news.“Because Monterey Park was getting so much shine for our No Data Center win, it put us on the maps of other small cities looking to ban data centers,” he says.Or, as Balian puts it: “ We've kind of awakened the beast.”And so, in the last few months, a dozen communities across California and around the U.S. have slid into the Monterey Park group’s DMs. One of those is Alessandro Mitchell. He runs a tenants' rights group in Montana called Missoula Neighbors United, which had also been fighting a data center project — this one on the site of a former lumber mill. Mitchell knew he’d need some help.“And that's when the Monterey Park people come in,” he said, “because I saw their victory, and I thought, ‘Well, these people are ahead of the pack.’"What advice did Mitchell get? Perhaps surprisingly, Kung said: Skip the ballot measure.“Having a referendum means a lot of canvassing; it means starting a ballot measure committee. It's a lot. It means fundraising. It's a lot of work.”After all they’d been through, Kung and Balian said an ordinance does just about everything organizers would want, and it’s a lot easier than trying to put a ban on the ballot.“An ordinance is the preferred path. It's the most direct path. It's the least amount of work on your part,” he said. In Missoula, the organizing paid off. The owner of the Bonner Mill Industrial Park backed out of that project as a result of “the public’s feedback.” Back in California, an organization called Viva La Causa sought out the Monterey Park organizers, too. Viva La Causa was formed years ago to fight against things like police brutality and gentrification. This year, they turned their focus to a data center project.“We noticed the work that Monterey Park was doing and how they were successful in implementing the ordinance,” said Viva La Causa organizer Ashley Vega. “And so seeing that, we knew that a permanent ban was possible.”Vega said that Monterey Park organizers offered up advice and a toolkit of useful apps for creating newsletters and petitions. In the end, Viva La Causa won its fight, too. In August, the Coachella council passed an ordinance banning data centers. But despite Monterey Park cautioning them about how much of a pain a ballot initiative can be, Viva La Causa still wants to push for a vote; organizer Cecilia Lemus said they just don’t trust their city council.“If the city council votes it in, they can also vote it out.” That wariness might make sense, as the EPA just announced it’s changing the rules around public input on industrial projects, which could make it harder for residents to even find out there’s a data center project in their communities. This is at a time when nationwide polling shows that 70% of residents are against a data center in their communities, and states as politically far apart as Texas and New York enacted temporary bans on data-center construction.As resistance grows, networking may be more important than ever. All these groups that mobilized for their specific local concerns might not have ever found each other if not for the common cause of data centers. But it’s also about what they’re powering, said Missoula’s Mitchell: artificial intelligence.“Because it is going to do so much to change society,” he said. “So I think, yes, it is creating a huge outpouring around the country, and it's activating people in a way that I haven't seen in my lifetime.”In Monterey Park, the organizers are putting together a playbook that other groups can follow. The real secret to success, though? Steven Kung said it’s weekly meetings to keep everyone accountable and spirits up.As for No Data Center Monterey Park, the group is on to its next fight: against AI-powered Flock traffic cameras. “The playbook Big Tech is using against us feels the same,” said Kung, “and so we're employing our same playbook against Flock.”