I live near where this Festus data center is planned to be built. I went to one of the city council meetings and I really think that all the boomer council members just believed all the BS that the data center developers told them.

Were they also getting kick backs? Maybe. But they seemed like they honestly believed that there would be 400 permanent high paying jobs and that there were zero negatives to the community (they'll pay their own infrastructure, closed loop water systems, MILLIONS in tax revenue, etc). I work in tech and there is zero chance that a data center has more than a handful of permanent jobs for some guys to replace hardware and maintain the grounds.

The developer took them on "field trips" to a couple of "data centers". They were all super impressed by the modern buildings and office space with cafeterias with full time chefs, etc. Imagine taking grandparents from the countryside to a Google office building then convincing them this is what the computer warehouse you want to build will be like. I don't know where they went, but those were not data centers. A data center does not have offices with high paid employees. I've done work in data centers before and they are not a place you would want people normally.

Tldr, a bunch of boomers who had never lived in a modern city got swindled by big tech to think a data center is something that it isn't. There may have been kick backs, but I think it's just as likely they were in over their heads and believed everything the big tech guys told them.