A Joliet councilwoman is calling on the city to give the public a more open view of a proposed 795-acre data center.

Councilman Suzanna Ibarra made her comments a day before the city posted a legal ad in The Herald-News, its only acknowledgement that the data center would go to the city Plan Commission for a vote at a special meeting on March 5.

The proposed Joliet data center, like others around Illinois, has become a focal point for controversy.

Ibarra at a Tuesday meeting of the City Council said it’s time for the city to become more transparent about the data center project.

“I want transparency for our residents, and I will accept nothing less,” Ibarra said at the council meeting on Tuesday.

She made her statement after several residents during a public comments section of the meeting voiced opposition to the data center as they have been doing regularly at council meetings since the project became public.

The project, however, enjoys broad support from building trades unions, which typically influence city elections and council decisions on controversial construction projects.

Union representatives staffed one of a number of stations at a public open house last week held by the companies that want to build the data center.

An executive from Hillwood, a Texas-based development company involved in the project, said at the open house that city officials were considering a special meeting of the Plan Commission on March 5 for a vote on the data center. The developers want a vote by the City Council, which will make the final decision, in March.

City officials last week would not comment on whether the project will go to a vote in March.

On Wednesday, a city spokeswoman pointed to a legal ad in The Herald-News announcing a special meeting of the Plan Commission on March 5. The ad, appearing on page 30 of the Wednesday edition, does not refer to a data center but states that the commission will consider an annexation agreement while listing the boundaries of the area known to be under consideration for the project.

City spokeswoman Ann Sylvester said the city on Friday also will launch a page on the city website dedicated to the data center project.

“This site will include available documents and materials related to the proposal so residents can review them directly,” Sylvester said in an email.

Among Ibarra’s concerns was a previous city response to a Freedom of Information Act request on the data center project that blacked out, or redacted, hundreds of pages so as to provide no information on the proposal.

The city in recent weeks has released the requested information, which includes a proposed annexation agreement for the land lying outside the city and a staff memo outlining issues related to water and electricity usage that would be required by the data center.

Ibarra, however, said she was concerned about access to information ahead of a city vote on the project.

“The residents deserve transparency, and then maybe we can all move forward,” Ibarra said

Her comments were the first among elected officials who will vote on the data center reflecting concern about the project.

Council members at previous meetings have heard public comment without response other than to say that they were listening.

The data center at one point was to go to the city Plan Commission for a vote in October. The project was taken off that agenda amid growing concerns from residents.

Data centers, which feed artificial intelligence capacity, have come under growing scrutiny due in part to their demand for electricity and water, along with complaints about noise from the operations.

Gov. JB Pritzker during a State of the State address on Wednesday called for a two-year moratorium on state tax incentives for data centers.

Pritzker said he wants to assess what impact data centers impose on the state energy grid and on consumer energy costs.

A state agency report issued in December and titled ”2025 Resource Adequacy Study” warned of of an upcoming electricity shortage in Illinois and labeled data centers as “the primary driver of load growth” for electricity in Illinois.