MANSFIELD — You can add the entire Richland County Board of Commissioners to local officials not interested in working with EnergiAcres on a proposed data center in Franklin Township.
Commissioners Tony Vero and Darrell Banks both said Thursday morning they have no desire to work with the Florida-based company that recently made public its plans to bring a power plant and data center to land north of Mansfield in Franklin Township.
Commissioner Cliff Mears was at a Land Bank conference meeting in Toledo on Thursday morning. But he confirmed with Richland Source on Thursday afternoon his opposition to the proposal.
Mears said recent social media accounts showing his alleged support for such a project are inaccurate.
According to Mears, one of those social media accounts included part of a Richland Source article from May 29, 2025, in which he and Banks were in support of an unrelated water main infrastructure project that Mansfield is pursuing near Mansfield Lahm Regional Airport.
That project would include a smaller data center used by the 179th Cyberspace Wing at the airport.
The data center project apparently died on Tuesday when Mansfield Mayor Jodie Perry announced the city was “not in alignment” with the company and had “communicated to them that we will no longer pursue the project,” which sought to have land annexed into the city.
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That annexation would require approval from the city, township and also county commissioners, none of which appears likely.
M. Dilshad Kasmani, chief legal officer for the company, said in an email to Richland Source on Wednesday company officials had seen Perry’s statement and “respect the position that’s been outlined.”
“The project in Richland County is still in the early stages of evaluation, with ongoing technical work and coordination to better understand what a potential development could look like,” Kasmani wrote.
Vero, responding to questions from resident Sara Kuhn, said company officials were free to say whatever they chose.
“The legal team is welcome to say anything they want. However, you need a willing partner. Again, this would be the city of Mansfield, not Richland County.
“Granted, the annexation would come through us, but the development agreement they need for city utilities, city partnerships, city development agreement,” must be with the city of Mansfield.
“They do not have a deal. You will never say never, but I do not see a data center coming into Richland County anytime soon, particularly in that Franklin Township location,” Vero said.
“(Mansfield is) not going to do this. I believe it’s a dead issue for right now and I don’t see it coming back anytime soon,” Vero said.
Such proposed data centers are under attack around Ohio.
According to an article in the Ohio Capital Journal, Ohio Residents for Responsible Development are collecting signatures to get a proposed constitutional amendment to prevent new, large data centers in Ohio on the November ballot.
The Ohio Ballot Board earlier this month unanimously certified the proposed amendment that would prohibit the construction of data centers with a peak load of more than 25 megawatts per month.
This would prevent most modern data centers.
The board was tasked with assuring the proposal contains only one amendment before it could proceed.
According to the OCJ story, Ohio has about 200 data centers, the fifth-highest amount among states in the country. Most of the data centers are in central Ohio. Cincinnati has 26 and Cleveland has 23, according to Data Center Map.
A large data center can use as much electricity as 100,000 homes, according to the Office of Ohio Consumers’ Counsel. Data centers used 4% of all U.S. electricity in 2023 and that is expected to grow to 9% by 2030, according to the counsel.
Other communities are also considering moratoriums on such data centers. According to the Delaware Source, Sunbury Mayor Joe St. John called for such a moratorium in his State of the City speech in March.
