A meeting to get a lamp post change is exactly how progress stops. It is why we can't build anything in US and it costs a billion dollars per mile of high speed rail.

A data centre isn't a lamp post.

Communities passed and paid bonds to have water hookusp. Built infrastructure. They should have a say in who gets access and why. There are plenty of places datacenters could build without hassle, but they want access to readymade infra, and that comes with a reasonable tradeoff.