A progressive nonprofit and five Box Elder County residents are suing the government officials who greenlit the Stratos hyperscale data center plan in a remote part of northern Utah.

Alliance for a Better Utah and those five anonymous residents filed a lawsuit Wednesday in Utah’s 3rd District Court against the quasi-governmental Military Installation Development Authority, or MIDA, and the Box Elder County Commission. The lawsuit also names as defendants two MIDA board members: Utah Senate President J. Stuart Adams and state Sen. Jerry Stevenson.

The plaintiffs allege MIDA, the two senators and the County Commission infringed on the residents’ civil rights by not allowing a public vote or other adequate public input — a point MIDA has disputed — before moving forward on the Stratos data center plan.

Among other things, the alliance and the residents are asking that a judge rule the law that created MIDA be “declared unconstitutional and void.”

“The MIDA statute — as applied in this case — portends a substantial invasion of the rights of Box Elder County residents to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” the lawsuit argues, “without ensuring that those rights are protected … through fundamental principles of representative democracy found in Utah’s Constitution.”

The Stratos plan, backed by celebrity investor and “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary, originally proposed building a 40,000-acre A.I. data center campus, and at full buildout, a 9-gigawatt electrical plant to power it, in the rural Hansel Valley area of Box Elder County.

O’Leary announced Thursday that he’s scaled back the overall project area to 20,000 acres after Adams sent him a letter demanding that Monday; O’Leary added the data center buildings themselves will now be limited to no more than half that smaller footprint.

When reached late Thursday, Kristin Kenney Williams, MIDA’s spokesperson, said the agency had no immediate comment because it hadn’t had a chance to review the legal complaint.

Lynnette Crockett, spokesperson for the Box Elder County commission, said Friday that the county had not yet been served with the complaint. “Once the county receives and reviews the relevant documents, we will evaluate the matter and respond as appropriate.”

Spokespeople for Adams and Stevenson did not immediately respond Thursday evening to requests for comment.

Williams previously said in an April email that there were two opportunities for the public to comment. The Box Elder County Commission heard public comment in favor of the project on April 22, she said, and Adams opened the discussion for public comment on April 24, but no one offered any.

The lawsuit alleges the moves MIDA’s board made to approve the Stratos plan — and the Box Elder County commissioners’ greenlight — “puts lawmaking power respecting questions of public health, safety, welfare, morals, taxation, zoning, land use, and the like, in relation to a significant swath of county territory, in a non-elected MIDA Board and the Interlocal Agreement’s special commission.”

The two agencies’ actions, the lawsuit states, “‘irrevocably’ cuts off the rights” of Box Elder County citizens.

David Irvine, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a statement Friday that the lawsuit boils down to a single question: “Do Utah residents have the right to be governed by elected officials who are accountable to them?”

The five Box Elder County residents joining Alliance for a Better Utah in the lawsuit wanted to remain anonymous because they fear “political and economic reprisals,” the lawsuit states. The five are participants in the Box Elder Accountability Referendum, or BEAR, the complaint notes, a group that petitioned to put two referendums on the ballot to let Box Elder County voters have a say in the data center plan.

The Box Elder County attorney rejected BEAR’s efforts last week, saying “neither referendum is legally referable to voters.” BEAR filed a separate suit Wednesday in Utah’s 1st District Court to appeal the county attorney’s decision. The same legal team is representing the plaintiffs in both lawsuits.

Alliance for a Better Utah has been involved in organizing opposition to the Box Elder County data center project since the plan first surfaced publicly at a MIDA board meeting in April.

In May, after Box Elder County commissioners voted to allow the MIDA project area to be created, O’Leary said on Fox News, without proof, that the alliance and another progressive Utah group opposed to the plan were being funded by the Chinese Communist Party.

“I’d probably get paid a lot more if I was,” the alliance’s Elizabeth Hutchings told Utah’s Fox 13 News on May 12. “We’re funded by a lot of grassroots donors, and a lot of people from around Utah that believe in what we do, and that’s as simple as that.”

— This is a developing story. Check back for updates.