BOWLING GREEN, OHIO — Last week, Wood County Auditor candidate Mark Wongrowski and Ohioans facing skyrocketing electric bills rallied against Jon Husted for his record of bringing hundreds of data centers to Ohio while local communities were left with the bill.
Jon Husted blames Ohioans for data centers, telling listeners in a recent interview that “we are the problem.” While Husted blames families and local communities, Ohio electric bills are now projected to be over $800 for the summer — a massive increase — and Meta is building a massive data center near Bowling Green.
See For Yourself:
WTOL 11: Ohio Democrats rally in Bowling Green over data centers, criticize Jon Husted
- WTOL 11: Ohio Democrats held a rally in Bowling Green Wednesday, criticizing U.S. Sen. Jon Husted over his position on data centers and the growth of the industry across the state.
- Beth Cole, Bowling Green resident living next to a data center: You’re going to do that to Ohioans? That’s just the lowest of the low. So it’s time to be fired.
- WTOL 11: Beth Cole lives in Middleton Township near the Meta’s $800 million data center. She says she’s felt left in the dark throughout the majority of the project.
- Cole: It’s just been a constant battle. And now as of today, they are going to be starting to pile drive into bedrock.
- WTOL 11: Cole, along with Mark Wongrowski, who is running for Wood County Auditor, says rising electric costs are another concern.
- Mark Wongrowski, Wood County Auditor candidate: Ohio has seen a 14.2% increase year over year as of May 2026. The national average is 6.2%. So we’re more than double that of the rest of the United States.
- Wongrowski: We’re in an affordability crisis right? Stagnant wages. At the same time we see all of our bills escalating unexpectedly. And so we want to make sure that we’re holding these large developments accountable to their impact on our residents.
Bowling Green Sentinel Tribune: BG rallies against Husted and his role in bringing data centers to Ohio
- The state’s Democratic Party held a rally in Bowling Green Wednesday to denounce Jon Husted for bringing hundreds of data centers to Ohio.
- Wood County auditor candidate Mark Wongrowski was the keynote speaker at the event, held on the back patio of Grounds for Thought. Wongrowski, a Democrat, was quick to point out what he saw as lack of transparency in county offices regarding the Meta data center north of the city.
- “I learned early when you make a commitment, you keep it, and when you’re entrusted with someone else’s numbers, somebody else’s land, somebody else’s future, that that trust, you treat it likes it’s sacred. That’s the job of the auditor and that’s exactly the job our county government forgot when it came to the data center reshaping Middleton Township,” he said.
- This is an Ohio problem and it starts at the top, he said.
- “Senator Jon Husted spent years as our lieutenant governor rolling out the red carpet for data center,” Wongrowski said.
- He asked what Ohioans have gained in return and answered that electricity bills that have gone up double the national average.
- Beth Cole, a Middleton Township resident who has opposed the continued expansion of the data center on Ohio 582, also spoke.
- “Jon Husted, First Energy golden boy, helped bring data centers to Ohio. Ohio now ranks number five for the number of data centers in the country,” she said. “Jon Husted has advertised Ohio’s cheap land, strong power grid, access to water and overly generous tax breaks.”
- Husted has blamed data center development on Ohioans, she said.
- In a July podcast interview, Husted said “… if you’re connected to a wire, you’re using the data center. So, understand, when we look in the mirror, we are the problem.”
- Cole implored voters in November to look past party lines and vote out the people who have wronged us.
- Bowling Green resident Maria Simon said she is seeing her utility bill go up and held up her statements. Last July, her electric usage was $29, this year it was $130.
- She asked everyone to talk to their neighbors, and anyone affected by the data center, and make the choice to elect Sherrod Brown as Ohio’s next senator.
- This is the third time the Ohio Democratic Party has been in Northwest Ohio to point out flaws it sees in Husted. The party rallied outside Husted’s Toledo office in February to call him out for taking money from financier Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirator Les Wexner and in June, also in Toledo, to advertise Husted’s role in the FirstEnergy bribery scheme.
Toledo Blade: Wood County Democrats criticize Republicans for data center support
- For Middleton Township resident Beth Cole, this November election is a “true Ohio hold my beer, or coffee, kind of moment.”
- “I implore everyone to look past party lines and vote out the people that have wronged us and our way of life,” Ms. Cole said. “Voting is the highest priority on Nov. 3.”
- The issue of data centers is personal for Ms. Cole. She lives next door to a hyperscale data center being built by Meta, Facebook’s parent company, and she is frustrated by the lack of transparency surrounding the project.
- She said she was supporting former Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown as he attempts to make a comeback to the U.S. Senate. He faces incumbent U.S. Sen. Jon Husted (R., Ohio), who was appointed to the seat last year.
- Mr. Brown has been a staunch critic of data center developments, saying big corporations are treating Ohio’s electric grid “like a game” and labeling his opponent “the face of data centers in Ohio.”
- Mr. Husted has championed past data-center projects.
- In 2024, Google announced it would invest $2.3 billion in its Ohio operations. “Data centers are essential to our digital lives,” then-Lt. Gov. Husted said.
- At the time, Google and other companies were eligible for sales tax exemptions of up to 100 percent for as long as 40 years if they met certain investment thresholds under incentives established during Gov. John Kasich’s administration. The exemptions have cost Ohio more than $1.5 billion.
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