Opponents of data centers say volunteers have been harassed collecting signatures for a petition at MontanaFair, including by law enforcement, while interim Yellowstone County Sheriff Kent O'Donnell defended his deputies.
Watch signature gathering story here:
A group of citizens gathered at the Yellowstone County commissioners' meeting Tuesday morning to speak against the treatment of the signature gatherers at MetraPark
While they're not allowed to be on the inside gathering signatures, some say they were harassed outside.
People said they were angry about what they say was unprovoked harassment.
"I wasn't causing a scene,” said Katie Harrison, a volunteer with Yellowstone County Voices, the group sponsoring the petition that sought to require a public vote on data centers. “I wasn't interfering with the flow of traffic. I wasn't doing anything that could hurt or impede on anyone doing anything."
Harrison says she experienced the harassment when she was standing outside the MontanaFair gates on Sunday collecting signatures in opposition of data centers.
"I was peacefully there exercising my right as an American and as a Montanan," Harrison said.
She also says a security guard first told her she needed to stand 25 feet behind the entrance, then told her to stand behind the ticket booth, and then told her to move one more time behind the people standing in the ticket line.
"The goalpost kept changing, that would have allowed him in his mind to have me arrested," Harrison said. "And that was very scary."
MetraPark's marketing manager Darcy Temple says the park has a no soliciting policy that triggers once you've paid at the gate and entered the park grounds.
Kassi Solberg, an organizer of Yellowstone County Voices, said she had entered the fairgrounds after collecting signatures when she was accosted by deputies.
"Sheriff deputies swarmed me when I told them I was leaving and turned to walk away," Solberg posted on Facebook. "One grabbed me, twisted my left arm around my back and grabbed the right arm. He cuffed me and held me on the back of their side by side."
Solberg said to MTN that her lawyer told her not to speak publicly about the incident.
Previous MTN coverage:
In related news, Yellowstone County Judge Ed Zink ruled Tuesday that gatherers missed a deadline to collect enough signatures to place the data-center measure on the November ballot, likely killing the effort. The petition effort was in response to a proposal by Quantica Inc. to build a large-scale data center on 5,000 acres a few miles south of Broadview.
O'Donnell, who was appointed sheriff this month following the retirement of Mike Linder, did address the county commissioners about what happened at MetraPark on Sunday.
"They were removed from public because of their actions, and one of those persons' actions put physical hands on a deputy," O’Donnell said.
No charges were filed, according to O'Donnell.
One woman said at the meeting that she was harassed when she parked illegally in MetraPark’s upper parking lot.
But she added that she talked with O'Donnell before the meeting about the incident.
"And I want everyone in the room to know that I feel very confident that he's gonna look into what happened," she said. "I was impressed with his response to me."
The investigations continue, and the public concerns still stand.
"A week ago, I took an oath in this very room to uphold the Constitution of the United States Constitution of Montana," O’Donnell said during the meeting.
Related:
Quantica seeking to boost energy capacity at proposed Broadview data center
Community voices concerns over Broadview AI data center project
