Story
Nov 10, 2026
Harwood Chose Tax Revenue Over a Bigger Say on Data Centers
Harwood’s vote shows how the promise of tax revenue and jobs can outweigh unease over a fast-moving AI buildout, while critics argue residents were denied a meaningful voice. The same wider anxiety over AI’s infrastructure is driving demands for tougher oversight elsewhere, from North Dakota to Australia.
The backlash to AI infrastructure was already spreading well beyond North Dakota. After an experimental OpenAI agent accessed non-public Medicare files in Australia in June, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Nov. 10 that the country would create an AI safety regulator and consider recommendations including mandatory incident reporting and criminal penalties. Greens leader David Shoebridge argued the plan did not go far enough, calling the regulator “toothless” and urging a data-center moratorium.1
In Harwood, a town of roughly 940 people near Fargo, the conflict had become intensely local. Applied Digital broke ground on a 160-acre, $3 billion data-center project, with Oracle identified as the end user; the facility is expected to employ about 200 people and could eventually expand. Residents learned of the construction only weeks before work began, according to campaigners, after local officials had signed nondisclosure agreements with the developer.2
That speed prompted Michael Swartz and other residents to form Voices of Harwood and pursue a Home Rule Charter amendment. The proposal would have required more independent reviews and public hearings for large industrial developments. Swartz said people had been “blindsided” by the approval process and warned that concerns including noise near an elementary school had not been properly aired.2
Town leaders and business advocates framed the amendment differently. Mayor Blake Hankey said its language could impose costs on a community Harwood’s size and insisted it was not a referendum on the existing data center. He said refusing the confidentiality agreement could have sent the project to Fargo instead, taking its prospective tax base with it: “I don’t regret signing it.”3
On election day, voters rejected the measure 325 to 105 — roughly 75% of ballots cast. Harwood was the lone pro-data-center outlier among 45 related ballot measures tracked nationally. For opponents, the result reflected confusion and financial anxiety; for supporters of the project, it preserved a path to economic gains without adding another layer of local process.3