No one wants a data center in their backyard. Data centers consume a massive amount of electricity and water, they are loud, and, if you would absolutely never buy a home situated under high-power lines, you would just love living next to a data center.
These are all good reasons why the people who want the data centers are the same ones who never want them in their own neighborhood.
So, why is Gilroy allowing one to be built in their backyard? At times, California is resource poor. I have heard too many times about rolling blackouts and water rationing. Yet, monied interests want to build a data center here.
In spite of what the monied interests say, a data center will drain local resources. The cost of electricity will go up for everyone. The cost of water will go up for everyone because the consumption by one entity affects an entire area. That is, the general public will carry the burden for Bezos’ profit center.
If it is so important to the likes of Bezos, then why don’t they put a data center in their backyards? The next time a megastructure catches fire I’d like to see the owners be told to “shelter in place” and wait out the ecological disaster.
What gets me is how quickly the permits were issued and without public input. Doesn’t anyone find it suspicious that though you can’t install a traffic signal without public input, city council discussion and the mayor’s approval, a massive data center can be permitted without any input or discussion?
No one was asked. No EPA studies were performed. I suspect that Mayor Greg Bozzo is in on this when he says “there’s nothing that can be done to stop the data center from being built” (KRON4 News, Jack Molmud, Feb. 23, 2026).
This isn’t the tone of a first-term mayor who is fighting to improve the lives of his constituents. It is the tone of a last-term mayor looking forward to an early and comfortable retirement.
To rush through something that no one wants and no one will support is suspicious. The mayor and Sharon Goel, the city’s Community Development Director, had to have been incentivized in some manner to try and sneak in permits for something so universally hated.
I have to ask, since nothing is surprising in this political environment: What kind of incentive package did they receive? The Clarence Thomas-style consisting of cars and luxury vacations or the Tom Homan-style consisting of $50,000 in a paper bag?
If he won’t actually represent his constituents and stop it, maybe it’s time to recall Mayor Bozzo.
Bernard Cobain
Morgan Hill
