April 20, 2026
Via email to: San José City Council
Joint Letter Regarding April 21 City Council Agenda Item 3.4
To Mayor Mahan, Vice Mayor Foley, and San José City Councilmembers,
The Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter, Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance, Green Foothills, Mothers Out Front Silicon Valley, and Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action are local organizations working to promote sustainability, healthy communities, and open space and habitat in the south Bay Area. In this letter, we ask the City to pause processing all data center proposals and related planning efforts until robust, equitable, and inclusive community outreach has been completed.
San José residents have a right to full transparency about all data centers currently in San José’s development pipeline. Communities deserve both cumulative and site-specific analysis of the health, financial and environmental impacts and risks of these 34 data centers. Furthermore, data centers and all associated support infrastructures that are to be located on public land are of concern, such as the centers planned north of Hwy 237.
We ask the City to conduct proactive and extensive multilingual community outreach in each neighborhood where a data center is proposed or planned. This outreach should include clear, accessible information and disclosure of the environmental, public health, and financial risks that data centers pose to our communities, to ratepayers, and our ecosystems. We ask the City to pause processing all data center proposals and related planning efforts until robust, equitable, and inclusive community outreach is completed. This pause is necessary to ensure that community feedback can meaningfully inform City decisions.
It is the City’s responsibility to ensure that residents have a real opportunity to shape decisions that affect them. Relying on City Council meetings and study sessions is not sufficient because these forums are often inaccessible to working people due to scheduling constraints and no opportunities for remote public comments. The City thus has an obligation to proactively go directly into our communities to seek feedback and consent before planning and approving data center plans. The City Council must also conduct a thorough CEQA process for each proposed project whether it is required by state regulations or not, and commit to adequate mitigation of any environmental or health harm.
Data center development also needs to be considered in the context of San José’s climate goals. The proliferation of new data centers in order to power the current AI boom threatens to send fossil fuel production and resultant greenhouse gas emissions skyrocketing. Google’s greenhouse gas emissions increased nearly 50% between 2019 and 2024, because, according to the Associated Press, “Google cited artificial intelligence and the demand it puts on data centers, which require massive amounts of electricity,” for this increase. See also Microsoft’s emissions soar by 30%: Why is it building more data centres and what is their impact?
Please do not proceed with data center planning as a foregone conclusion. The City must commit to transparency and a process that allows communities to be fully informed, to meaningfully shape outcomes, and to reject projects that pose unacceptable risks. San José’s communities deserve the right to be informed, and they deserve the right to say no to data centers.
Sincerely,
Dashiell Leeds
Conservation Coordinator
Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter
Alice Kaufman
Policy and Advocacy Director
Green Foothills
Shani Kleinhaus
Environmental Advocate
Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance
Shruti Gopinathan
Leadership Team Member
Mothers Out Front Silicon Valley
Anika K.
Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action
San Jose Youth Climate Action Team
Daphne Zhu
Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action
San Jose Youth Climate Action Team