Nearly 100 residents attended the first Washington city council meeting since a potential new data center came to light three weeks ago.

As the meeting began Monday evening, Washington Mayor David Rhoads made it clear that there were no items on the agenda regarding the proposed data center.

“We’re not talking about that tonight — at a later time if necessary but we’re not talking about it,” he said to a packed room before opening the meeting. “It’s not on the agenda, and maybe at a later date we’ll let the public know what’s going on.”

The crowd stayed for the duration of the meeting anyway. There was no public comment period and the data center didn’t come up.

Residents like Rowdy Abbott wished the council would have allowed the community to speak at the meeting.

“It's frustrating, but when you're knocking on the doors of power, this is what happens,” he said. “When you show up to these meetings that usually have six people in the room, and there's no way to get in the door now with this meeting, you know you're doing something right.”

The data center would be located at the southeast corner of I-69 and US 50 and span 120 acres.

Abbott said that location was primed for economic growth and development for the city.

“If there's a giant data center sitting there right on the doorstep, you're not gonna have businesses want to come in and build right next to that,” he said. “So it's going to stifle that economic growth that they've said we were supposed to get.”

Before building, developer Outrigger Industrial needs the city to update zoning ordinances and guarantee its water and sewer will serve the site.