Monday night there was an emergency ordinance on the agenda for Lordstown council, to prohibit the establishment and operation of data centers in the village.

However, after hearing testimony from opponents and proponents of the ordinance, council put the vote on hold to gather more information.

"I'll just say it straight out, I am not for data centers," resident Mark McGrail said during public comment.

That sentiment was echoed through majority of the residents in the meeting. They want more research done on this first.

"I'm approving the ban until we can further research and investigate what the outcome and what the affect on our residents would be, these factors were not taken into consideration during the powerplant," Laura Czoka said.

They're also raising concerns over a number of issues including tax abatements, noise pollution, safety and being the "sacrificial lamb," of the valley.

"You can't tell me that a business is going to come to the village and say they're not going to ask for anything in return just let us put our business there. They're going to want abatements on taxes," Phillip Fishcer said during public comment.

Residents continued to voice their concerns, one by one.

"The noise pollution from these things is supposed to be absolutely intolerable and as you heard in the letters from the people who live on my street, we already live with this, we can tell you from first hand experience what it's like to live next to an industrial site," McGrail said.

"We have not had time to study the ramifications, what about what should the height of noise barriers be? We don't have the answers to these questions," Czoka said.

"There was a fire at one of these places, I think it was in Jerome, Ohio. It took every fire company in the county 30 hours to put it out. Are we ready to handle that, as good as our fire department is? Absolutely not," McGrail said.

"Our water bill's gonna go up, our electric's gonna go up, property tax probably drop, for what? What's the Mahoning Valley done for us? Why are we responsible for all the jobs in Mahoning Valley? What have they done for us?" another resident said.

However, one resident against the ban said his fellow neighbors promote data centers by their own actions everyday.

"How many of you guys have a smart phone? Just think about it, every time you ask Siri or you ask chat GPT or you say 'hey Google what about this,' you're asking that data center somewhere," a resident said.

Former Lordstown Mayor Arno Hill chimed in to say he isn't for one side or the other but that he has seen good come from businesses that set up shop in the area.

"I'm not gonna speak for or against any data center because I haven't done the research. I've taken a beating over some of the projects that's come in and when somebody says, 'Well what'd we get out of it?' The power plant saved the school, the school's gotten over $15 million and we have the lowest taxes in the county and that is because of the businesses which have come here," Hill said.

Fischer called for a more thorough look into data centers.

"What I would like to propose is that a committee be put together, five to six village personnel, at least two council members, somebody from the police station, somebody from the fire station to go and run a visit to the data centers in Ohio there's 167 of them," Fischer said. "Go around and visit them, see what happens knock on some doors say 'What seems to be the problem, what do you see wrong with this data center in your backyard,'" he said.

By the end of the meeting, council decided to have three readings on the matter where residents can continue to gather and voice their opposition.

This will also allow for more time to do research. The next reading will be at the next council meeting on October 20th.