On June 22, more than 80 people packed Jackson City Hall for a public hearing on data center regulations. Twenty-six people spoke. Twenty-five opposed data centers coming to the capital city. The one supporter was a lawyer for the company trying to build one.

That ratio, 25 to 1, tells you everything about where Jackson stands on the AI data center boom sweeping Mississippi. The question now is whether the City Council will listen.

The next regular council meeting is July 14 at 10 a.m. at City Hall. The July 1 meeting was canceled for a municipal conference. According to the Jackson Association of Neighborhoods' summary of the June 23 council meeting, a future public hearing on data center regulations is expected in early July, with an additional work session anticipated before the July 14 meeting.

Council members are reviewing public feedback and proposed amendments before presenting a draft ordinance. Once a draft is released, another public hearing will be held before any final vote. City leaders have stressed that no data center projects will be approved until the regulatory framework is complete.

The fight has been building for months. In April, Council President Brian Grizzell introduced a 183-day moratorium on new data center development. The council tabled it on a 4-2 vote in May after the city attorney raised legal questions about whether a moratorium counts as a zoning ordinance, which requires a public hearing and proper advertisement.

While the council works on citywide rules, a specific project is waiting in the wings. Saxum Investment Company wants to rezone roughly 230 acres along Forest Avenue in Northwest Jackson, expanded from an initial 190-acre request, from residential, commercial, and light industrial to I-2 heavy industrial. The site is near the Ashley Acres neighborhood, where residents say they can see the property from their front doors.

Saxum's rezoning request has been postponed three times. The Planning Board was set to hear it May 27, but Saxum asked for a delay. The board pushed it to June 24. Then Saxum asked for another postponement, and the matter is now on hold until the city adopts its new data center zoning rules.

The June 22 hearing was standing room only. The Jackson Fire Department turned away roughly two dozen people once the chamber hit capacity of about 60. Overflow rooms filled up. Speakers raised concerns about water usage, noise, emissions, infrastructure strain, and environmental impacts on a city still recovering from a water crisis.

One resident, identified as Lawson, told the council: 'We've seen already that Jackson has a drinking water crisis, a clean water crisis, and our infrastructure is in a very tenuous spot. None of the residents still feel quite safe with the drinking water here.'

Only one voice broke the pattern. Robert Ireland, an attorney with Watkins and Eager representing Saxum, told the council the company supports the city's effort to write data center-specific standards and wants to pursue a project that meets residents' concerns. He pointed to temporary turbine emissions at a Southaven data center as a problem the council could address by restricting temporary power sources.

The July 14 meeting will be the first test of whether the council can turn public outrage into a regulatory framework. The draft ordinance, once released, will show how the city plans to handle water consumption, noise limits, emissions, and temporary power sources. If the council moves too slowly, the Saxum rezoning could resurface before the rules are in place. If it moves too fast, residents may accuse it of rubber-stamping a project they don't want.