Will Independence councilmember face a recall vote? Where the petition effort stands
After a month of signature collection, Independence residents hoping to recall city councilperson John Perkins have submitted their first batch of signed petitions toward a potential referendum.
Perkins was one of five current and former Independence City Councilmembers to vote in favor of a $6 billion set of sweeping tax breaks for Nebius, a Dutch artificial intelligence company currently constructing a $150 billion hyperscale AI data center in northeast Independence.
A formal effort to recall the councilmember, who has represented the district west of the data center site for 18 years nonconsecutively, kicked off a month ago in the city. A recall is how citizens can go about removing an elected official from office.
Organizers of the Perkins recall effort declined to share the final total of signatures collected. As of 8 a.m. Tuesday, petitioners were still 100 signatures short, racing to collect final batches of signatures ahead of a 3 p.m. filing deadline to the Office of the Independence City Clerk. Another 100 signatures were collected Monday afternoon alone.
Recall supporters would have needed to collect about 1,000 signatures, representing 8% of registered voters in the First District.
In a statement shared with The Star Wednesday afternoon, organizers wrote that the recall effort is a consequence of “growing frustration among residents who feel unheard on the largest development project in the city’s history.”
“This effort was powered by concerned residents who care deeply about transparency, accountability and the future of Independence,” organizer McKenna Cobb said in Wednesday’s statement.
Backlash against elected officials
Perkins did not hold any public meetings specifically for District 1 residents surrounding the data center and its accompanying financial plan, Cobb previously told The Star. Residents’ concern around his approach to the massive development project reflects a wider dissatisfaction with city officials’ transparency as they voted to welcome the 400-acre data center, she said.
The recall was also partially inspired by residents’ recent success in voting out two of the five councilmembers who voted for the data center financing package. During an April municipal election, Councilmember Bridget McCandless lost the Independence mayoral race to Kevin King, while Councilmember Jared Fears was also voted off the dais.
Both King and incoming City Councilmember Jackie Dorman were endorsed by the Stop The AI Data Center in Independence effort, initially organized on social media in response to news of Nebius’ arrival in the city.
Those who circulated the petition continued to share their concerns about the future impacts of the data center, Cobb said, particularly the long-term financial, environmental and public health implications of the supersize industrial project.
Organizers also maintain concerns, she said, about the speed at which the project moved through municipal approval processes with what some saw as a minimal level of community engagement and outward communication.
Perkins and the city of Independence were unavailable for comment Wednesday. Perkins previously told The Star that he does not believe the recall effort “reflects the full picture of the work being done in District 1,” but that he “respect[s] the process and will continue to do the work our residents expect.”
Petition strategies return
The final number of valid signatures will be determined by the Jackson County Election Board at the end of the certification process for those petitions submitted Tuesday. However, the recall effort won’t be over if Perkins’ opponents come up short.
Under the Independence City Charter, if the number of signatures for a recall petition comes back under the threshold to trigger a ballot measure, the election board will be required to notify those who filed it. At this point, organizers would have an additional 10 days to collect and submit signatures.
In order to collect signatures for the recall effort, first district residents returned to the time-intensive, event-focused petition strategies first developed within the Stop The AI Data Center group. Organizers previously collected more than 5,000 signatures in favor of a referendum on the tax breaks for the data center, though the effort was shut down by a Jackson County judge following a lawsuit.
Residents went door-to-door in the first district, formed phone trees and queued outside of local businesses and municipal buildings. Some decorated their cars or stood on street corners for hours with homemade signs and bright red banners, hoping to flag down passing neighbors.
“This has always been about giving residents a voice,” Cobb said. “We are incredibly proud of the community members who took part in the democratic process and made their voices heard.”
New grassroots groups form
Cobb is the treasurer of the Independence Community Action Committee, a political action group recently formed by a group of vocal participants initially organized under the umbrella of Stop The AI Data Center in Independence.
Formalizing into a PAC allowed the group to fundraise for advertising materials during the recall effort, among other organizational activities. The PAC sponsored a series of flyers distributed throughout the first district, naming Perkins’ vote in favor of the data center tax breaks as a motivation for his removal.
“We deserve leaders who will communicate with us about some of the largest projects in the city, value our input, and do their due diligence to ensure that the community is protected,” the mailer read in bold font.
Alongside the ICAC in the evolving Independence movement against the data center is the Independence GUARD Alliance, an acronym for Guardians United Against Reckless Development.
The GUARD Alliance filed to become a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) last month and centers on a group of residents of Bly and Bundschu Roads, the two residential streets located within view of the data center site. The group hosted its first informal gathering this weekend, a Memorial Day barbecue where residents bonded over card games, birdwatching, water balloons and data center concerns.
Organizers are currently running their first fundraising campaign and recently drafted an ordinance that would place a moratorium on future data centers in Independence, which they submitted to the city council for consideration.
They have also been in touch with a pair of attorneys, including Stephen Jeffery, who is representing residents in a lawsuit against St. Louis suburb Festus, Missouri, seeking to halt a data center project underway there.
Jeffery and attorney Aaron Cook will speak alongside multiple local organizers at a GUARD Alliance town hall meeting on June 2 at 6:30 p.m. at the Rhapsody Event Space, a multipurpose venue at 2322 E R D Mize Rd, Independence, MO 64057.
