Reporting revealed Edgerton City Council had sued citizens to block certified ballot petition banning data centers

On August 14, 2026, KCTV5 reported that the City of Edgerton, Kansas had sued two residents and a local nonprofit in Johnson County District Court to block a certified citizen ballot petition banning high-impact data centers from the city; the exact date the suit was filed was not disclosed in public reporting. Resident Carrie Schmidt filed the petition with the city clerk on July 15, proposing an ordinance to bar high-impact data centers, and Johnson County's own election office verified that organizers had collected more than double the signatures Kansas law required to force a public vote. Under that law, the Edgerton City Council was required to either adopt the ordinance itself or send it to voters; instead, at its July 23 meeting, the council called the petition "legally and factually deficient" and voted to authorize a lawsuit rather than let it reach the ballot.

The lawsuit, filed by outside counsel Stumbo Hanson LLP and verified by City Administrator Elizabeth Linn, named Schmidt, fellow resident Kimberly Twente, and the nonprofit Public Trust Collective as defendants, seeking a declaratory judgment voiding the petition and a permanent injunction blocking the ordinance from ever reaching voters. The city argued the petition rested on false claims -- about municipal water and electric service, a pending data-center construction application, and required zoning approvals -- and characterized it as a disguised zoning ordinance masquerading as a citizen initiative. The petition followed two earlier council votes that had gone against the same residents: a 3-2 vote on June 15 rejecting a six-month moratorium on data centers, and a 4-0 vote on July 16 overriding the planning commission's rejection of a site plan for a Dubai-based company's proposed data center at the Logistics Park Kansas City industrial park.

City Attorney Todd Luckman defended the suit in an on-the-record statement issued August 13, saying the city was not seeking damages or attorney's fees and that its request to pause the election process was procedural, not an order restraining the named residents from any contact. Organizer Carrie Schmidt called the lawsuit an attempt to punish citizens for petitioning, saying it would send "every other city attorney" the message to sue rather than let a popular measure reach a vote. No hearing date had been set as of the initial reporting.