Mayor Tells Shelbyville Residents Their Houses Are Too Bad to Matter

A $2 billion data center pitch in Indiana turned ugly when the mayor dismissed opponents by the quality of their housing, on camera, without apparent concern.

Shelbyville, Indiana's mayor was recorded telling associates that people who oppose the proposed data center live in 'shitty houses.'
The facility carries a $2 billion price tag and would require significant land and infrastructure from the city.
Residents opposed to the project have raised concerns about noise, water use, power draw, and local benefit.
The mayor's comments surfaced publicly and have since become the center of a political backlash in the community.
No groundbreaking has occurred; the project remains a proposal, not a machine.

Shelbyville, Indiana has a mayor who is very excited about a data center. Two billion dollars. He wants you to know that. What he did not want you to hear was the part where he explained who gets to have an opinion about it.

The mayor was caught on camera dismissing residents who oppose the facility. His characterization: they live in “shitty houses.” The implication was clear enough. Bad house, bad take. The cameras were rolling anyway.

This is the sales pitch stripped of its slide deck. Someone wants to drop a large power-and-cooling facility into a small Indiana city. The facility will draw serious wattage — data centers at this capital scale typically run anywhere from 100 to 500 megawatts at full build-out, though no load figure has been confirmed for this site. It will need water. It will generate noise. It will need grid capacity the city does not currently have sitting idle. These are engineering facts, not opinions, and they apply regardless of the assessed value of your home.

The residents asking questions are asking the right ones. What is the power draw? Who pays for the substation upgrade? What does the water agreement look like? What jobs, specifically, and how many, and at what wage? These are numbers. The mayor offered a class remark instead.

The project has not broken ground. It is still a proposal, a number on a term sheet, a rendering on a screen. Nothing runs yet. When something runs, the specs will tell you whether this was worth it. Until then, the only thing confirmed is the mayor's opinion of his constituents.

The machine does not care who built the house next door. The machine has a load, a footprint, and a contract. Those are what matter. Someone should ask to see them.