Not Karl: Meet the Woman Behind the Data Center Petition

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A proposed data center in Inver Grove Heights faces backlash—but residents aren’t just angry, they’re organized. Packed meetings have galvanized support against the development, generating a moratorium on data centers that narrowly passed City Council last week and an environmental petition that forces review of the project.

Who’s behind the community organizing?

It’s Kari, Not Karl

“I guess call me Karl,” said the first resident to the podium at last week’s City Council meeting. “I’m actually Kari Lundberg, the one who submitted the petition.” It was a lighthearted jab at attorney Jason Kuboushek, who mistakenly referred to Lundberg as ‘Karl’ when describing the citizen petition for an environmental review. Kuboushek later apologized.

It was a moment of levity in a meeting that was twice adjourned to police crowd reactions. Kari Lundberg (definitely not Karl) is one of many Inver Grove Heights residents organizing to stop the data center.

Why: “Our community cares about the future of Inver Grove Heights, but right now, the everyday residents most impacted by this development lack a voice in the room,” said Lundberg. “I see myself as a conduit and a catalyst, someone willing to step up, organize our collective concerns, and channel our community’s energy into the transparent, actionable change we need to protect our home.”

Who: Inver Grove Heights has been home to Lundberg for about a dozen years. She’s married, with school-aged kids and two dogs. She works as a software product manager, so organizing comes naturally.

New: But civic engagement is new for Lundberg, who started earlier this year with the increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in Minnesota. “I had to do something to stand up for my community,” she said. “I hadn’t really engaged much at a civic level before that (unless Girl Scouting as a kid counts?). I saw or heard that you can make the biggest difference at a community level.”

Why Oppose Data Centers?

Opposition to data centers has sprung up nationwide, but those are often massive scale data centers. The proposal in Inver Grove Heights is relatively small at 54,000 square feet, compared to the 1.3 million-square-foot data center Google is proposing for Hermantown (which is also facing backlash). But the issues persist.

What issues: Lundberg points to the data center’s potential sound/noise pollution, air pollution from diesel generators, water pollution from additives in their closed-loop cooling system, power and water use increasing costs for residents—and all of that while delivering minimal value to the community.

• Community voice: “I’m tired of big business ‘dumping’ on communities with little concern for the well-being of those who must live with the consequences of decisions that don’t include the communities themselves,” said Lundberg.
• Code can’t keep up: “They exploit antiquated code,” Lundberg said, pointing out that city code from 2017 is outdated for today’s data centers, “and build them so fast that the community has little time to understand what is happening before they’re built and operational.”
• Expected respone: “People are recognizing this pattern, seeing the impacts in the communities that have these data centers and pushing back,” she said.

The Petition

The environmental petition came on Thursday afternoon, less than 24 hours before the rescheduled City Council meeting to consider the data center. It’s called an environmental assessment worksheet (EAW) and requires 100 signatures from residents. Lundberg and her fellow residents collected more than 700 signatures.

What is it: “The EAW petition is not just submitting a bunch of signatures because you don’t like something,” said Lundberg. “We had to have valid concerns and citations/evidence that studies are needed for the project you’re focused on.”

Team effort: While Lundberg led the effort, a lot of people were involved—”So many,” she said. “I’m amazed by the amount of gratitude I’ve felt from people attending signing events and connecting on the data center topic.”

• Seed of an idea: Lundberg didn’t know about EAWs initially, and learned about the process from a cousin in Owatanna. “Her guidance was instrumental in ensuring we completed the submission correctly the first time, which helped achieve the quick turn-around time before the Inver Grove Heights City Council meeting on Friday,” Lundberg said. “This is networking at its finest.”
• Doing the work: Lundberg brought the petition idea to a community-minded group working to organize against the data center. They had already done much of the heavy lifting of finding evidence. One person worked to cite sources. Multiple people helped gather signatures, hosting events and meeting in parking lots and at City Council.
• More: “If we had more time and capacity, I’m sure we could have collected many more,” Lundberg said. “That was community engagement and involvement, one signature at a time.”

What’s Effective?

Organizing community engagement is never easy, but Lundberg and her group found ways to break through.

• Tapping into the need: “Many people wanted to be heard but needed a catalyst to make it easy to speak up,” she said.
• Tools: They used form email templates to make it easy for residents to email City Council members. The opportunity to sign a petition became another easy way for people to engage and feel heard.
• Bipartisan: It helps that resistance to data centers seems to be a rare, bipartisan issue. “People care about where they live, regardless of their political stance,” said Lundberg.

“The work our group did filled Inver Grove Heights Council chambers and the overflow room on a Friday morning at 8 a.m.,” Lundberg said. “If that doesn’t tell the city leadership how important this issue is, I don’t know what does.”

Wider Engagement in Inver Grove Heights

The recent community engagement in Inver Grove Heights is not limited to the data center.

• Public works: Last year, an $58 million public works building project prompted a citizen petition, forcing a vote by residents if the city funds the project through bonds (currently the city is exploring other options).
• State flag: In April, a debate about which state flag the city should display drew dozens of comments (the same meeting included the data center, with the meeting stretching past four hours).
• Hockey: The city is also working to secure the Minnesota Hockey Hall of Fame, a project that’s perhaps less controversial, but has a big price tag for the city ($8.7 million in land acquisition, plus $10-12 million in public improvements).

“There is a lot going on in Inver Grove Heights, stemming from the perception that (some of) the City Council members do not listen to the community on any topic, and generally that they have been making decisions that don’t appear to be in the best interest of the community, with little to no explanation. That has caused friction and frustration,” Lundberg said.

About five months ago the group IGH Cares formed, helping residents connect and mobilize on pressing local issues. Many of the people who worked on the petition came from the group, but their focus is also bigger than the data center.

What’s Next?

Now the city has 30 days to act on the EAW.

“It helps the city get engagement at the state level to understand the concerns and impacts the project could have to the community and get the answers we all want,” said Lundberg.

There’s also the one-year moratorium, which gives the city time to consider changes to their zoning code. The community will continue to be engaged, paying close attention as the process continues.

“We got the petition across the line, but the journey has just begun,” said Lundberg.

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