Andrea Clinton, Director of Community Engagement for the Arizona Data Center Alliance, told participants, “One of the things that we hope to do as a community engagement force is to take events like these on the road.” She extended the invitation directly to communities in the room, adding that AZDCA would welcome the opportunity to facilitate future sessions with them.

Councilmember Tony Bencina of the Town of Florence immediately took her up on the idea, offering Florence as a potential host. The offer is particularly timely because Florence has already created a Data Center Facility Ad Hoc Advisory Committee to help the community better understand and evaluate data center development.

Taking future sessions into communities like Florence would change the dynamic. Instead of asking local officials and residents to come to an industry conversation, the industry would go to them. It would create an opportunity to hear the questions being asked locally, bring the right experts into the room and acknowledge that the issues will not look identical everywhere.

September 17 did not produce a statewide position on data centers, and that was never the goal. It helped identify what a more credible process could look like: clearer plain-language resources, more consistent terminology and metrics, better access to project-specific information, and engagement that begins before a community is being asked to vote.