ASHVILLE, Ohio — The Pickaway County Board of Elections voted 4-0 Monday night to allow a referendum on Ashville’s data center development agreement to appear on the Nov. 3 ballot, according to the advocacy group that organized the petition drive.
Teays Valley Against Overgrowth said in a Facebook post that the board determined Ashville’s Resolution 06-2026 was a legislative action, meaning voters — not the village council — will have the final say on the agreement with EdgeConneX Inc. The group called the outcome “a major win for referendum rights, public participation, and the basic principle that decisions this significant should not be placed beyond the reach of voters,” and said it would release more details and video from the meeting.
The vote caps a monthslong legal fight that began in April, when Ashville’s village council voted 5-1 to adopt Resolution 06-2026, approving a development agreement with EdgeConneX and an affiliated company, EdgeConneX MCN Ashville Properties 1 LLC, to build two data centers on roughly 195 acres in the village. A related company, PowerConneX, is separately seeking Ohio Power Siting Board approval to build a natural gas-fired power plant of up to 800 megawatts on about 110 acres of the same property to supply the data centers; the siting board held a public hearing on that proposal Aug. 19 at Teays Valley High School.
Village council passed the data center resolution as an emergency measure, which under Ohio law takes effect immediately and cannot be put to a referendum. Residents opposed to the deal, led by Laura McNamara-Smith, gathered signatures for a referendum petition anyway. The Pickaway County Board of Elections validated 669 of the signatures submitted — well above the 498 needed to qualify for the ballot. Ashville’s fiscal officer, April Grube, declined to certify the petition, citing the emergency clause.
The dispute reached the Ohio Supreme Court, which ruled Aug. 7 that the resolution’s emergency declaration relied on only “conclusory statements” and failed to explain how a 30-day delay before the agreement took effect would have harmed the project. The court ordered Grube to certify the petition and sent the matter to the county elections board, which still had to decide whether the resolution was a legislative action subject to referendum or an administrative action that voters cannot overturn — a determination the board said it was making in consultation with the county prosecutor’s office.
Monday’s 4-0 vote resolved that question in the petitioners’ favor, clearing the way for the referendum to appear on the November ballot alongside other Pickaway County races and issues.
The information contained in this story was obtained from Teays Valley Against Overgrowth, Ohio Supreme Court records and previous Scioto Valley Guardian reporting.
