Police in Claremore, Oklahoma arrested a local man after he went slightly over his time giving public remarks during a city council meeting opposing a proposed data center. Darren Blanchard showed up at a Claremore City Council meeting on Tuesday to talk about public records and the data center. When he went over his allotted 3 minutes by a few seconds, the city had him arrested and charged with trespassing.
The subject of the city council meeting was Project Mustang, a proposed data center that would be located within a local industrial park. In a mirror of fights playing out across the United States, developer Beale Infrastructure is attempting to build a large data center in a small town and the residents are concerned about water rights, spiking electricity bills, and noise.
The public hearing was a chance for the city council to address some of these concerns and all residents were given a strict three minute time limit. The entire event was livestreamed and archive of it is on YouTube. Blanchard was warned, barely, to “respect the process” by one of the council members but was clearly finishing reading from papers he had brought to read from, was not belligerent, and went over time by just a few seconds. Anyone who has ever attended or watched a city council meeting anywhere will know that people go over their time at essentially any meeting that includes public comment.
Blanchard arrived with documents in hand and questions about public records requests he’d made. During his remarks, people clapped and cheered and he asked that this not be counted against his three minutes. “There are major concerns about the public process in Claremore,” Blanchard said, referencing compliance documents and irregularities he’d uncovered in public records.
When he went over this three minutes, police officers and an unidentified city official rushed to his position. Blanchard put down the microphone and approached the city councilors to hand them some of his documents. The police follow. Immediately, someone in the crowd said “Freedom of speech.” There is an exchange of words at the table where the councilors are seated that’s impossible to hear over cheers from the crowd.
“On what grounds? I said on what grounds?” Blanchard said as the cheers subsided.
“Arrest him,” an unidentified man in a blue vest said.
The police officers immediately put Blanchard’s hands in handcuffs. He doesn’t resist.“You’re arresting him?” A woman called from the crowd.
“What’s wrong with you people?” Said another.
“In order to get through this, it’s gonna help if each person can talk—whether they’re for or against—without the clapping and [inaudible], that way you can have your three minutes without being interrupted,” Claremore Mayor Debbie Long told the crowd. “So I appreciate that. I appreciate it from both sides.”
Claremore PD and the Mayor’s office did not respond to 404 Media’s request for comment, but the PD did provide a lengthy statement on the incident to the local outlet News On 6. “Claremore Police officers are not responsible for enforcing the rules of city council meetings and only become involved when a city official orders someone removed from the meeting,” the statement to News on 6 said.
“A Mounds man came to Claremore and refused to comply with the rules that everyone else had no problem complying with. He was ordered removed by the City Manager, but refused to do so. Officers again told the man to leave, but he said, ‘I’m not gonna leave,’ and continued with the behaviors that caused him to be expelled. Officers were left with no choice but to arrest him,” the statement said.
The construction of data centers is a contentious topic in America right now. The push to build out artificial intelligence has created an unprecedented demand for data centers to fuel them and people who live near the proposed construction projects often aren’t happy about it. In Amarillo, Texas, residents are fighting a 6,000 acre project that would consume a lot of water in a drought prone area. A small town in Michigan is pushing back against a proposed data center that would assist with nuclear weapons research. It’s unclear what, exactly, Project Mustang would do if it were built.