Kansas City Today

Gardner residents stopped a data center plan. Then another came

By Nomin Ujiyediin,

Published May 5, 2026 at 4:00 AM CDT

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Residents of a rural Johnson County community are confronting a new data center proposal from San Francisco-based Beale Infrastructure, just weeks after they blocked a similar proposal.

KCUR's Steve Kraske spoke with Taylor O’Connor, reporter at The Kansas City Star, about what she learned from residents in the area.

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Kansas City Today is hosted by Nomin Ujiyediin. It is produced by Byron Love and KCUR Studios, and edited by Gabe Rosenberg, Madeline Fox and Emily Younker.

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Nomin Ujiyediin

As a newscaster and a host of a daily news podcast, I want to deliver the most important and interesting news of the day in an engaging and easily understandable way. No matter where you live in the metro or what you’re interested in, I want you to learn something from each newscast or podcast – and maybe even give you something to talk about at the dinner table.

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Byron J. Love

As an on-demand producer, I am focused on using my skills and experiences across multiple digital applications, platforms and media fields to create community focused audio, video and on-demand products for KCUR Studios. The media that I produce aims to inform, entertain and connect with the Kansas City metro area as we continue to learn from each other. Email me at byronlove@kcur.org.

See stories by Byron J. Love