Volume 1, Issue 15 - Free Edition, July 24, 2026

Anti-Data Center Protest Draws Four

Noelle Maxwell

Four protesters gathered in Greensburg, July 18, to stand against AI data centers. The protest was one of many held across the country as part of a national day of protest announced by Humans First, a conservative-leaning advocacy group. Greensburg’s protest was organized by activist Christian Byrd and Allen Miller, Democratic candidate for Indiana House District 73. Besides protesting, signatures were collected for a petition requesting that city and county elected officials place a 12-month moratorium on a proposed AI data center.

Nancy Jobst and Linda Spurlin were two protestors who attended. Both spoke briefly to the Independent. Jobst said she’s against the data center which she believed to be “going right across from Honda, and that’s good farmland.” Spurlin, from Shelbyville, said she was attending “to support you guys in your fight against the data center.” When asked why they are against data centers, Jobst cited their use of water and electricity, which she described as “terrible,” adding “we can afford it, but there’s a lot of people that won’t be able to afford it.” Jobst added that she’s attending the protest “for my great-grandkids. They don’t understand, they’re too young and don’t really understand what all the consequences of this will be.” Spurlin said she’s against data centers “because they take too much and give nothing back.” When asked what she knows about the data center situation in Decatur County, Spurlin said “not much, I just know it’s a brotherhood. We’ve got to stand together and unite.”

The four protestors stayed for the entire protest, which was from 1 PM to 3 PM. “We were hoping for more people to show up, of course” Byrd shared via text message, “but, [we] were happy to be there nonetheless! We have to start somewhere! People will see we’re showing up, we’re getting the conversation going again. We had other people stop by and talk to us. It wasn’t the turnout we were hoping for but we still got the message across, that message being: ‘we don’t want data centers here, in our backyard and we deserve more transparency!" A total of 1,036 signatures – 139 wet and 897 online – were collected for the moratorium petition. Byrd’s goal was 1,000 signatures in two weeks.

“It was a little disappointing,” Miller said regarding turnout, “that we only had four people show up and two of them were the organizers, but, I think it was good.”

Miller attributed the lower turnout to the protest’s last-minute nature, noting “there was a national group that had organized a nationwide day of protests and for whatever algorithm reasons, I didn’t find out about that group until about ten days ago. And then, I was talking back and forth with Christian like, ‘hey, should we plan something for Greensburg? Should we just kind of encourage people to go over to Shelbyville?” Miller acknowledged that Shelbyville is “really hurt and really upset about the data center that’s going in,” and felt that the only reason Decatur County hadn’t seen a similar level of activism was because people “don’t know about it. Talking with Christian, some of these documents – this process started even as far back as maybe 2023 and the land’s already annexed, everything short of the zoning approval is ready to break ground on this data center project that nobody really knew about. It feels really shady the way that it’s been done kind of out of the public eye, not just here in Greensburg, it was done pretty far out of the public eye in Shelbyville, as well, right up until the point where it wasn’t.”

When asked why she and Miller organized Saturday’s protest, Byrd responded “because we need the rest of the community to know that we’re stronger when we’re together. So many of us in Greensburg felt like we were blindsided when we first learned of the hyperscale data center in December 2024. Most of the major decisions had already been made. We felt like we didn’t have a seat at the table. Greensburg isn’t the only small town caught in the grasps of these multi-billion dollar tech companies. It was a national protest because this is a national problem.” Byrd also added “we want people to know that we don’t have a problem with AI! We just don’t want data centers being sprung on us suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere. The majority of people I’ve discussed the proposed data center with feel like major decisions were being made without much consideration for the residents.”

Decatur County Community Pool Updates

Noelle Maxwell

Supply chain issues have delayed the opening of the Decatur County Pool, but commissioner Gabe Nobbe, who has spearheaded the project, still hopes to open the facility this year with a grand opening in 2027.

While permitting challenges were a factor in delays, the supply chain, according to Nobbe “has caused us some real issues.” Metal products were scarce, sand filters were unavailable and the pool’s chlorine tank hasn’t arrived yet. Nobbe shared the original plan was to open the pool at the end of June but with delays, “we have no expected date.”

Once complete, the pool will have a zero-entry area, family slide and a four-flume slide. Zero entry means the pool will have a gradual, sloped entrance area enabling users to walk directly into the water. This makes the pool accessible to all, including disabled individuals who may not be able to use stairs or ladders. The family slide will be a wider, lower water slide that multiple users can go down simultaneously and the flume slide has flumes at 10, 12, 16 and 18 feet. Other features the pool will have include a splash pad, approximately 54 picnic tables in the food court area and roughly 120 lounge chairs. There will be shade structures installed eventually, Nobbe added, but probably not by the grand opening.

The project has stayed within its $4.5 million budget, which has been mostly funded through grants and donations. “The whole community came together,” Nobbe said, to fund the pool. A combined $3.5 million was raised through a $1 million donation from the Decatur County Community Foundation, a $1.5 million loan payable over three years from Decatur County Redevelopment Commission and $1 million came through a City of Greensburg and Decatur County Solid Waste management partnership. An additional $300,000 matching grant by DCCF has raised approximately $200,000 so far.  “We’ve had some big donors,” Nobbe said, noting many individual donors had chipped in, too.

When asked why he wanted to revive the pool project, Nobbe explained, “I think lots of folks wanted the pool and I think that became very evident. However, when the original project,” was being discussed in 2023, “a lot of people seemed to get upset that there was, possibly, a food and beverage tax,” to fund it. Nobbe continued “the food and beverage tax that I believe got tied to it,” made people lose interest in the pool, because “it got the feeling that the whole project was tied around” that tax. The pool, he said, had “$3 million worth of grant money” at that time.  

Nobbe decided to run for county commissioner in 2024, with bringing a pool back to Decatur County as a core component of his platform. Once elected, he went to the DCCF to collaborate on a survey, “because I wanted fresh data,” he explained. “The original survey – only got 900 responses. This one, we got 3,456 responses, so you could already tell just from the first survey to the second,” there was more interest. Nobbe’s survey polled residents on what amenities they wanted to see, “and diving was a big one that didn’t come back,” he said. Not having a diving area “simplified a lot of things for us, [it] made it easier to do the zero entry. We don’t need a pool heater isn’t as deep,” there were several aspects that were easier to implement without a diving area, “so that’s why some of those changes were made.” One last aspect Nobbe mentioned was that when it opens, the pool will be known as the Decatur County Community Pool, “I know there’s been lots of things thrown around,” he said, “people say city pool, Allen Memorial, but the Decatur County Community Pool is what our branding will be. The reason for that is, this took an entire community to bring it back together. Not just the folks on the pool committee, not just the commissioners, not just county council, it took the entire community. We raised $3.9 million without ever having to touch the taxpayer fund. To me, that’s huge. What I want people to know is: thank you. Thank you for bringing the vision to life. Thank you for getting on board with the project. Thank you for all the donations. Thanks for the continued support.”

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