LETTER: County’s Legacy Hangs in the Balance at Data Center Hearing

September 8, 2022

The Planning Commission will issue its recommendation on the Prince William Digital Gateway this Wednesday.  Will it serve the interests of our taxpayers or surrender them to QTS and Compass?

All concerned citizens should attend the public hearing at the McCoart Building on September 14th at 7 PM to speak out.  I intend to focus on nine points: needlessness, water quality, noise, power, transportation, other infrastructure, history and culture, flawed process, and ethics.  There’s a lot more, but you only get three minutes to rail against something that will stain this community for eternity. 

 

I promise the experience of a public hearing will be entertaining and instructive.  You will hear facts and folly, see legitimate concern and disdainful disinterest, witness public service and shameless sell-out.    

 

Numerous arguments have pilloried this dreadful idea over the past year.  Yet, like the Frankenstein monster, it just shrugs off things that ought to kill it.

 

There has been very little legitimate study or review of this proposal.  Rather there has been determined deflection and denial of any evidence, primarily unearthed by citizens rather than a cowered county government, that is contrary to the relentless lobbying of a small minority of financially conflicted supporters.

 

Our Planning Commissioners KNOW this is wrong and why it still moves inexplicably forward.  They should assert their integrity, act responsibly, and recommend denial, or at least deferral, of a proposal for which due diligence has not been performed.  Their legacy and the future of our county hang in the balance. 

 

Bill Wright

Gainesville

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