Fate of Sioux Falls data center petition drive unknown as deadline passes

Let Sioux Falls Vote needed more than 6,700 signatures to refer rezoning, but outcome won't be known for several days

Jordan Deffenbaugh and Alyssa Anderson were among the volunteers with Let Sioux Falls Vote collecting signatures Jan. 29 to force a vote on a rezoning change that would allow a data center in Sioux Falls. (Jonathan Ellis/The Dakota Scout)

Opponents of a Sioux Falls data center squeezed every last minute they could into collecting signatures before a 5 p.m. deadline to refer a zoning change to voters.

Volunteers with Let Sioux Falls Vote were staged outside Carnegie Town Hall with signs asking drivers headed west on 10^th Street to sign their petitions. By 4:15 petitions were being dropped off at the City Clerk’s Office, which will verify them.

“They just brought a whole big stack in now,” City Clerk Jermery Washington said, who added that the first ballots had been dropped off a couple weeks ago.