City Representatives, Mayor Vote Against El Pasoans On Meta Data Center

On Tuesday, June 9, 2026, El Pasoans showed up but our city representatives didn't show up for us.

Almost 200 people packed City Hall. The overflow room was full and there were nearly 200 residents signed up to speak. The public comment session on the Meta data center incentive agreement stretched across seven to eight hours, and the overwhelming message from person after person standing at that microphone was the same: we do not want this here. Not like this. Not at our expense.

And then the council, staring into the eyes of the people they claim to represent, Mayor Renard Johnson included, voted directly against the people who put them in power.

City Reps. Alejandra Chavez, Cynthia Boyar Trejo, Deanna Maldonado-Rocha, Art Fierro, and Ivan Nino, joined by Mayor Renard Johnson, voted 5-3 against a proposal to begin negotiations toward terminating the city's incentive agreement with Meta. The three votes on the right side of history belonged to Josh Acevedo, Lily Limon, and Chris Canales.

Let that sink in. This was not even a vote to cancel the data center. This was a vote to have a conversation. To open negotiations. To push Meta back toward its original terms and protect El Paso's resources. Six elected officials could not even vote to do that much.

As the final votes were cast, the crowd in that chamber responded the way El Paso responds when it has had enough. They filled the room with one voice: "Vote them out."

They meant it. And so should you.

What City Council Was Actually Voting On

The framing coming from the five representatives and the mayor was fear. Specifically, fear of litigation. The city's outside legal counsel, Sandy Gomez of Husch Blackwell, told the council that attempting to terminate the agreement could expose the city to up to $800 million in liability because the current contract contains no "termination for convenience" clause.

That is a real concern. No one is pretending the legal situation is simple.

But the argument against the people was never really about protecting taxpayers. It was about protecting a deal that grants Meta an 80% break on city and county property taxes for 25 years and was approved in 2023 by a council that included Art Fierro and Chris Canales as the only current members who were there. The city also committed $12.5 million in road infrastructure improvements around the data center site. All of that was decided before most El Pasoans even knew what was happening.

The people at City Hall on Tuesday were not there because they are uninformed, they were there because they are very, very informed and very, very angry.

The Jobs Lie Has Been Told Before

Every city that has welcomed a hyperscale data center has heard the same pitch. Thousands of jobs. Economic transformation. The future is here.

The incentive agreement with Meta only commits the company to creating 50 permanent jobs. Meta has said it expects to employ at least 300 permanently, but that number is not contractually guaranteed and has shifted throughout the public conversation.

Meanwhile, construction jobs are not El Paso jobs. Workers have already been shipped in from companies across the country. When this project ends or the deal collapses or the next data center campus opens somewhere else, those workers go with it. They were never ours to begin with.

This pattern plays out everywhere. Data centers are among the most capital-intensive, least labor-intensive developments a city can host. They require massive land, massive water, massive power, and minimal human staffing. The billion-dollar investment figure is real. The jobs figure is not proportionate to it, and no amount of press releases from the Borderplex Alliance changes that.

What a $10 Billion Data Center Does to El Paso's Resources

We have covered this before, but it bears repeating because the numbers are staggering.

El Paso Water estimates the Meta data center will consume an average of 400,000 gallons of water per day. Four hundred thousand gallons, every single day, in a desert city that has already experienced a near-dam collapse this year, a 36-inch water main rupture that left more than 100,000 Northeast and Central El Paso residents without adequate water pressure, two major wastewater spills, and multiple emergency repair events.

To power the data center, El Paso Electric is building a brand new power plant: a nearly $500 million, 366-megawatt facility powered by 813 small gas-fired generators that will emit carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and other pollutants into El Paso air. EPE's filings indicate the cost of that plant is expected to shift to all ratepayers after an initial period where Meta covers it. In other words, El Paso Electric already raised residential rates by 23 percent. More is coming. And you will be paying for Meta's power plant.

That is the deal on the table. A quarter century of near-zero taxes for one of the most valuable companies in human history, in exchange for 50 guaranteed jobs, 400,000 gallons of water per day, and a power bill that grows every year.

This Is Not Over. Here Is How You Fight Back.

The chant in that room did not end when the meeting did. Two paths forward are already being organized.

The Recall Option

Under the El Paso City Charter, any elected official can be subject to a recall election. To trigger one, organizers must file a notice of intent to recall with the City Clerk, then collect authentic signatures from at least 20 percent of the total votes cast in the election that originally put that official in office. That petition must be completed within 60 days of filing the notice of intent.

There are limits. An official cannot be recalled within six months of taking office, nor within twelve months of the end of their term. For reps up for election in November, that twelve-month window is already closing fast. The math gets tight, but it is not impossible, and that is why the organizing conversations need to start right now, not in September.

If a recall effort interests you, the first step is contacting the El Paso City Clerk's office at (915) 212-0049 or emailing cityclerk@elpasotexas.gov to understand the current procedural requirements for your specific district and representative.

The November Option

This one is cleaner, more powerful, and already right in front of us.

El Paso city council elections are on November 3, 2026. The filing deadline for candidates is August 17, 2026. Districts 1, 5, 6, and 8 are on that ballot. Of the five representatives who voted against the people on Tuesday, the seats held by Alejandra Chavez (District 1), Ivan Nino (District 5), Art Fierro (District 6), and Chris Canales (District 8) are all up for election in November. Note: Canales voted FOR the people on Tuesday and does not belong in that group. The three who voted against El Paso and face voters this November are Chavez, Nino, and Fierro.

Art Fierro and Chris Canales are the only remaining members of the 2023 council that originally approved the Meta incentive deal. Fierro still voted against his own constituents this week.

If you want to run, the filing window opens July 20, 2026 at City Hall, 300 N. Campbell, 1st Floor. If you want to support challengers, the time to start organizing is now. Voter registration deadlines will matter. Turnout will matter. In El Paso city elections, turnout has historically been so low that a mobilized, motivated community is not just competitive. It wins.

The people who were in that room on Tuesday, and everyone who watched from home, are that community.

What Happens to a City That Chooses Big Tech Over Its People

There is a question worth asking out loud: has any city been made better by hosting one of these campuses?

Look at the data. Look at Mesa, Arizona, where data center proliferation has contributed to fights over water rights in a state already facing historic drought conditions. Look at the communities near data centers in Virginia, Iowa, and the Pacific Northwest where residents describe higher utility rates, infrastructure strain, and the peculiar experience of living next to a billion-dollar investment that needs almost none of them.

The promise is always the same. The results are always the same. A handful of permanent jobs, a few years of construction activity, and a structure that consumes your resources for decades while paying almost nothing in taxes toward your schools, your roads, or your water system.

El Paso deserves better than a deal that was negotiated in the dark, defended with fear tactics, and pushed through over the objections of hundreds of its own citizens standing in line for eight hours on a Tuesday.

The Real Power Is Millions of Informed People

Jon Barela, CEO of the Borderplex Alliance, stood before a private industry summit earlier this year and called El Pasoans who showed up to oppose this deal a "virus." He issued what he described as a "call to arms" for supporters to pressure elected officials. He said their concerns were "misinformation" and "bad data."

The people who packed City Hall on Tuesday were not a virus. They were neighbors. Teachers. Engineers. Parents. Grandmothers. People who asked, plainly and without any drama, how many years the water underneath this desert can support both its people and a data center the size of a small city.

That question does not have a reassuring answer. And the representatives who voted to avoid it anyway will answer for that choice.

Not in a chant. In a ballot box. On November 3.

Register to vote at VoteTexas.gov. Check your registration status. Know your district. Know who represents you. And show up.