Findings from the public record, 2019-2026
The earlier public record is notably consistent: Jon Husted discussed data centers as an economic-development opportunity to be recruited, incentivized and expanded. Explicit language about local residents making the choice appears much later, amid the political backlash.
The strongest evidence
2019 – Google/New Albany. Husted celebrated Google’s $600 million project, defended a 15-year state sales-tax exemption worth an estimated $43.5 million and argued that imposing the tax could have driven Google elsewhere. His emphasis was jobs, economic activity and making Columbus the Midwest technology hub. The contemporaneous Statehouse News Bureau account contains no mention of consulting residents beforehand or obtaining community consent.
Read the 2019 Statehouse News Bureau report
https://www.wosu.org/statehouse-news-stories/2019-11-01/with-new-google-data-center-husted-calls-columbus-tech-hub-of-midwest
2022 – Meta/New Albany expansion. Husted welcomed Meta’s expansion, saying Ohio valued the company’s continued investment and portraying tech infrastructure as Ohio’s future. New Albany Mayor Sloan Spalding discussed Meta’s community grants and called it a fantastic partner. Husted did not discuss resident input or approval.
Read the 2022 Meta expansion coverage
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/meta-to-expand-new-albany-ohio-data-center-campus/
June 2023 – AWS’s $7.8 billion expansion. DeWine and Husted announced the expansion while the communities where the new data centers would be built had not yet been selected. JobsOhio said numerous localities were under consideration and final sites would be determined later. Neither Husted’s statement nor the accompanying state economic-development message said those communities would first be consulted or allowed to decide whether they wanted the facilities.
Read the original JobsOhio AWS announcement
https://www.jobsohio.com/newsroom/news-press/amazon-web-services-plans-to-invest-an-estimated-7-8-billion-in-ohio
August 2023 – Google expands to New Albany, Columbus and Lancaster. Husted appeared at Google’s announcement and again emphasized Ohio becoming the tech capital of the Midwest. Reporting noted the enormous electricity and transmission requirements of data centers, but Husted’s comments focused on investment and the lack of additional incentives, not community participation in the siting decision.
Read the Ohio Capital Journal account
https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2023/08/29/google-announces-plans-to-invest-1-7-billion-in-a-trio-of-central-ohio-data-centers/
June 2024 – Husted recognizes the infrastructure problem. Husted acknowledged that Microsoft, AWS, Meta and other data centers demand large amounts of electricity and water for cooling and said Ohio needed a balance. When describing how the problem was being managed, however, he said the administration was in constant communication with AEP, the utility. He did not mention communications with affected residents, community votes or enhanced public participation. He then stressed that data centers generate local tax revenue without creating much housing demand.
Read WOSU’s June 2024 report
https://www.wosu.org/2024-06-21/as-data-centers-swell-in-ohio-facilities-strain-electric-and-water-services
June 2024 – Google’s $2.3 billion expansion. Husted’s formal quote was emphatic: “Data centers are essential to our digital lives.” He welcomed additional partnerships in education, AI and energy. His statement included no condition concerning resident approval or public consultation.
Read Google’s Ohio investment announcement (PDF)
https://www.gstatic.com/marketing-cms/48/64/6c79851d452ca8df0c21443fb0c5/final-06-18-24-oh-iia-press-release-2024.pdf
December 2024 – AWS announces another $10 billion. Husted said data centers and AI were “crucial to America’s economic superiority.” The state announcement describes the investment and economic benefits but contains no Husted call for local votes, resident consent or pre-siting public consultation.
Read the December 2024 JobsOhio announcement
https://www.jobsohio.com/newsroom/news-press/governor-dewine-announces-10-billion-investment-plan-from-amazon-web-services-in-greater-ohio
The contrast: the ‘always believed’ claim appears in 2026
The Washington Post asked Husted about his change in tone in summer 2026. His spokesperson responded:
“He has always believed that it should be up to the local communities whether or not they want new data centers.”
Read The Washington Post report
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/08/23/most-gop-politicians-now-talk-negatively-about-data-centers-data-shows/
That is a retrospective assertion. A search of Husted’s earlier public statements did not locate a contemporaneous quotation demonstrating it.
Husted himself used much more explicit language on July 28, 2026:
“These are local decisions that should be made by local residents and local communities, not the federal government.”
In the same interview, he said:
“Look, we’re responsive to the public. If the public says that they don’t like something, then you listen…”
Read the Spectrum News interview
https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/columbus/news/2026/07/28/data-center-husted-ohio
Neither statement proves that Husted changed his position. Chronologically, however, this rhetoric differs markedly from the investment announcements of 2019-24.
Community-input concerns already existed
A 2022 critique of the closely related Intel/New Albany megaproject complained about secret negotiations and the absence of public input. Intel’s project is a semiconductor fabrication plant, not a data center, so it should not be treated as proof of Husted’s data-center policy. It does show that transparency and community participation were live issues surrounding the DeWine-Husted administration’s high-tech economic-development strategy.
Read the 2022 Free Press critique
https://freepress.org/article/busting-myths-intel-and-ohio-way-secrecy-deals-public-neglect-myth-making-and-re-election
TIME reported in 2022 that some longtime New Albany residents were worried about rapid development and objected to tax abatements for big-tech data centers because those projects generated relatively few permanent jobs. Husted, interviewed in the same story about the region’s technology boom, promoted the new high-tech economy; the account does not show him responding with a call for greater resident participation.
Read TIME’s 2022 report
https://time.com/6140476/intel-building-factory-ohio/
Husted used community listening in other policy areas
Community consultation was not foreign to Husted’s governing philosophy or administrative toolbox. BroadbandOhio used extensive public and stakeholder listening processes, including in-person and virtual sessions involving government, nonprofits, businesses and members of the public. Husted’s Common Sense Initiative likewise celebrated public and stakeholder input into regulations. What the reviewed record does not show is Husted publicly applying that approach to data-center siting during the years he was aggressively promoting the industry.
Read Ohio’s Digital Opportunity Plan
https://www.scribd.com/document/762899871/04292024-Ohio-Digital-Opportunity-Plan
Read the 2019 Common Sense Initiative description
https://www.wyandotcountyeconomicdevelopment.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/All-2019-WCOED-Newsletters.pdf
Carefully supportable conclusion
Husted now says he has “always believed” local communities should decide whether they want data centers. But a review of his public statements and Ohio economic-development announcements from 2019 through 2024 turns up no comparable call for resident approval or community consultation before data centers were sited. During those years, Husted repeatedly promoted data centers for their investment, tax revenue, jobs and importance to Ohio’s technology economy – even after acknowledging their enormous electricity and water demands.
The record reviewed does not support saying that Husted opposed community input. Nor does it establish that communities had no legal role; municipalities and townships often had zoning, annexation, infrastructure or tax decisions of their own.
The narrower question is more defensible: When Husted’s office now says he has always believed communities should decide, where is the contemporaneous evidence?
Among the major Google, Meta and AWS projects reviewed from 2019 through December 2024, no such public statement was located. The June 2023 AWS announcement is the strongest single exhibit: Ohio welcomed $7.8 billion in projects while the actual communities had yet to be selected, without Husted publicly conditioning the expansion on those communities wanting the facilities.
Research summary | Prepared September 2026
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