Episode 92: PA State Rep Jamie Walsh & John Zola: Fighting Data Centers in PA

[00:00:03 - 00:00:06] Speaker: Unknown
Oh.

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I tried to sign the hearts open. Fire will never tire. We will not come flying.

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I will try. Oh!

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What a week. So who's better, me or Rob O'Donnell? No, no. Just kidding. I listen to that whole thing. And I didn't know that you guys went back down to Ashburn yesterday. So, John, would you tell me, like, what did you expect versus what you saw when you got there? And how did that, like, like the raw version of it where it's, you know, you can say whatever you want?

[00:00:52 - 00:01:18] Speaker: Unknown
I didn't I didn't know what to expect. But honestly, like I said, to Rob, you know, when we got there, we started driving around. It was just, just endless giant buildings. Did you do Jamie? Did he do the same thing that we did? Okay. Yeah. All right. All right. You know, so when you saw it. So this is enormous, windowless buildings.

[00:01:18 - 00:01:42] Speaker: Unknown
Really? No. People around parking lots for these buildings were enormous. But there was five cars. Six cars? No cars. It was really weird. Like I said, it's like the world ended and we survived. It seemed like that was the environment we were in. It was just very eerie and strange.

[00:01:43 - 00:02:09] Speaker: Unknown
So, you know, unfortunately, I didn't get to see that area before. It was data center alley. Right? Right. When it was like forests and lakes and because I'm in farmland. Yeah. On the way there, you could see it's beautiful there. Yes. I mean, just gorgeous. So I'm quite certain that they destroyed some beautiful real estate there. With that said.

[00:02:10 - 00:02:33] Speaker: Unknown
As they have it right now, all of that stuff is kind of contained in one little city. It's like a data center city. Yeah. And so it's as terrible as it is, it's like, okay, this is away from most everyone. It's stuck here. It's all these same buildings. They're all the same. They're kind in their own little thing here.

[00:02:33 - 00:03:06] Speaker: Unknown
Not little thing. Big thing. So from that perspective, it was like, okay, this is all right. So in comparison to going to rural America and plopping these data centers next to people's homes, next to their farm, you know, just places where they shouldn't be. So again, I'm sure that's how that one started out. And that's what we're trying to not let happen here.

[00:03:06 - 00:03:28] Speaker: Unknown
Did you go down with a group of people? We did. Yeah. How many how many people went down? So we had we had two township supervisors with us from two different municipalities. There. But this is because, you know, they're they're they're trying to figure out whether or not they're going to put these in their towns. And no one has gone down to Ashburn, which is, what, less than three hours away or about three hours away from there?

[00:03:28 - 00:03:50] Speaker: Unknown
About three and a half. Yeah. Okay. And, so you're like, come on, get in the bus. We're going. Yeah. Yeah. And, and we threw this together like, literally in the last week, and we're like, because, you know, the pressure, the temperature's turning up with every single day that goes by. So, you know, they're talking about, well, how far should our setbacks be?

[00:03:50 - 00:04:16] Speaker: Unknown
Well, when you don't stand next to, 60, 70ft tall building, that's five football fields long. Yeah. You might consider that 200ft away from that building is ample. Ample? Yeah. Well, we got there yesterday, our first stop, and and John brought his, rangefinder finder. And we're getting closer to the building and closer to the building and close to the building.

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And the one township supervisor was like, there's no way that's 200. There's no way that's 200ft. Feet. John says 67 yards. Right. You know, it's 200ft. And, so it was a really good thing for them to see because 200ft sounds like a lot of on paper. Sounds like a long way. Yeah. But, I think we decided at the end of the day yesterday that 1000ft minimum was like, realistic.

[00:04:44 - 00:05:06] Speaker: Unknown
I mean, you have your house here. You don't need to be. This can't be on top of you. But, so we had two township supervisors from two different municipalities. We had a zoning officer with us. We had a we picked up Jenny. Kerslake from Food and Water. She's been fighting these since she has a.

[00:05:06 - 00:05:33] Speaker: Unknown
So she's like a nonprofit. Yeah. Okay. And she she has a social media Jenny Kerslake. Castle lackey. That you should follow if you're into this topic because she is everywhere across Pennsylvania. She's literally everywhere. And then, we also met, down there. We met, Senator Katie Muth and her friend Pam. They came from her district.

[00:05:33 - 00:05:55] Speaker: Unknown
Okay. So they had never been there either. So. Okay. So I had a car full of people that have never seen it. And and, you know, the first place we went to, what we were talking. And John's like, you know, it was the baseball fields that were. It was the first place you guys went. The first place with the turf field.

[00:05:55 - 00:06:21] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. So for the people who don't know this, like, Jamie invited me down to go do, like, a documentary. And if if you remember, we were looking for those diesel generators and we didn't think they were there. Yeah, until we went around back. And then we were all like, Holy shit. Like, there's like 60 of them. Yeah. Unfortunately, we didn't get to hear any of those that none none of the buildings we went to, they they weren't running at that particular time, but they are massive.

[00:06:21 - 00:06:42] Speaker: Unknown
Well, also, if you go, if you go to that area, which is also like an apartment complex or condos. It's, it's if you did your rangefinder there that's probably 2 or 300ft away from the building. Because if you go across the ball field, oh that's all it is. Yeah. The ball field. Yeah. And that's and those people did not know that that was going to be there when they.

[00:06:42 - 00:07:02] Speaker: Unknown
But again how many people did we see. Zero. Yeah. There's nobody. It was like to ghost town. It was like they are extinct. It was so strange. Like there's all there's like you said, those apartments are all there, but no people like, no activity whatsoever. You figured they'd be like a dog or a kid on the field. Nathan.

[00:07:02 - 00:07:26] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. We saw one lady walking, and the weather was good. Yeah, the weather was. It was beautiful. It was like 50, 45 to 50 degrees all day. And we are driving past these brand new parks, and there's no, no now. One family like, not one person decided on a nice sunny day. Temperatures are good. It's now really windy.

[00:07:26 - 00:07:48] Speaker: Unknown
Now one family decided to just go to go to the park because, I mean, I guess they just don't want to go hang out next to these big buildings. I don't know what it is. Are they there? Like I said, when I got back, we went when we left Ashburn and we came straight back to that township meeting and it in my mind I said, this feels like Armageddon down there.

[00:07:48 - 00:08:05] Speaker: Unknown
And it's true. Well, what's it, what's it say about like, it almost seems like there's like this precondition. It's like, well, everybody's mad that we're building these things, but if you guys build a park, maybe people won't be mad. And it's just like it's almost. What's it? Lipstick on a pig. Yeah. Like that's. That almost seems like what it is.

[00:08:05 - 00:08:21] Speaker: Unknown
Well, and when you mention that. So it's like a dangling carrot we were on top of, the one parking garage, not the one you were on. This was a taller one. We found a better one. Did you really? Stories high? Yeah. We did. So we're we're looking over the edge. And the one. The one part of this parking garage.

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When you look over the edge, there's, like, this little city that they made for them. It's not real big. It might be six blocks, but it's like a T, so it's two blocks this way, this way and this way. And we were there around 12:00, and there's all these quaint little shops and restaurants and offices. But again, no people.

[00:08:43 - 00:09:06] Speaker: Unknown
There were no people. So we decided we were going to go eat lunch. So we went down into this little city and we're walking around, and this is one of those cities that they apparently built for them as a as a little token. And, we walk into the restaurant, we sit down, and we were literally the only people in that restaurant the entire time.

[00:09:06 - 00:09:26] Speaker: Unknown
The the waitress even said to us, she said, you're you're my only customer all day today. Like where the people go, like there's no people. How are they staying open? We don't know. Maybe they're maybe they're being supplemented. We don't know. They're there is a development that's like across the way I, we should have drove through there, but we were trying to hit.

[00:09:26 - 00:09:45] Speaker: Unknown
So many stops and we run out of daylight, running out of time. So and you know, but there was a development across the street that it's like is this is this another like 15 minute city? Remember the first city we were in? Yeah. I didn't even talk to John about the 15 minute city we were in down there.

[00:09:45 - 00:10:07] Speaker: Unknown
That was scary. It was scary. But it's like, do these people just only people that live in that development, come across the street and go to this place? Like after hours on weekends? And, and the waitress did say to us, she goes, you know, it is Monday and we're a little slower on Mondays and but one table for lunch.

[00:10:07 - 00:10:26] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah, yeah. For lunch. Why are you even open for lunch then? Like, the owner should be like, yeah, we're not really too busy at lunchtime. Maybe having a party at 4:00. The food was terrific. It was. But but but the irony about that. But no customers. So here's what I want to do is like, what was your feeling when you what was the feeling of everybody there?

[00:10:26 - 00:10:43] Speaker: Unknown
Like, we can talk about, like, data and we can talk about like, square footage and infrastructure and all that, which we will. But what was the feeling of everybody down there, like where people skeptical going down about whether or not these are good in a community or not. And then and then when they got down there, did they change?

[00:10:43 - 00:11:07] Speaker: Unknown
God bless you. Did they change their like was the ride home somber? It was enlightening. So I think no one knew what to expect going down except for Jamie, because he was there before. And then on the way back and even like while we were there, everyone was just like, this is this is not what we want.

[00:11:07 - 00:11:32] Speaker: Unknown
This is bad. Like, you know, bad, I don't know, were you did you guys go to the cemetery when you were there? Oh, yeah. Yeah. How about that? That's insane. It's a slave cemetery. Well, yeah, but it's they they literally gave them five feet outside the fence, and then they surrounded by data centers and three parking spots. Yeah, they had three parking spots.

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And so I was excited to go back to the cemetery because we wanted to get really close up to a building because, you know, when you're down there, everything's fenced off. You can't get in it. Oh yeah. Yeah. So I'm like, well, listen, over by the cemetery that is just under construction because we were there whatnot. August. So August, late August early.

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So that one wasn't being built. Yeah. Yeah. It was started. So if you're so if you're looking at the front entrance of the cemetery, it's the one to your right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we could have when we were there, there was no guard shack. We could have walked right over and touch that building. So that's why I was like, let's go back to the cemetery because we wanted to get they wanted to kind of get up close and maybe shoot the height of it and all that kind of stuff.

[00:12:14 - 00:12:39] Speaker: Unknown
Well, now you go there, it's all fenced off. There's a guard shack there. You can't, you know, go in and out. Which means that they put all this together in, like, three months. Oh, the, the diesel generators were installed, the I mean, they were just putting the finishing touches on. It is crazy. It's wild. So. Okay, so I'd like to talk about here and we can we can relate all that back.

[00:12:39 - 00:13:10] Speaker: Unknown
So I just want to let people know this is one of those things that like politics is really divisive in this country right now. But it seems like the data centers is one of those like 8020 issues where most people are like, we don't want them. And the I don't know why this is happening the way it is, but the proposals in Napa, over 100 buildings are proposed in Lackawanna and Luzerne County, with dozens with campuses along I-81.

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Examples of this are Project Gravity and Archbold, which, which which is 6 to 7 buildings approximately 1.6 to 2 miles square. They're going to use the water from Lake Scranton via Pennsylvania American Water. You have Project Hazelnut North Point, which is 15 buildings in Hazel Township. The Amazon Salem Falls building, Jesup, Schuylkill. And you could find these maps at PA data center proposals.com.

[00:13:41 - 00:13:59] Speaker: Unknown
Why? What are these things? What are these data centers? What is in them as best as you know? Why build them? So let's let's go with the basics. So we'll start off with the basics and then we'll get and then we'll get into the conspiracies as we always do stuff. Yeah yeah yeah. We'll put our hats on. Yeah, yeah.

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But we, we use data centers for a lot of things. 911. Our emergency system runs off of data centers. Extremely important for first responders, important for communications, and so on and so forth. Hospitals, you know, use data centers, like, for medical records and stuff. Yeah, for medical records. You know, if, if, if you go to, if you have an emergency and you go to a hospital that, they don't know, marked down a bomb, and you can't communicate with them, they can pull your medical records and know not to give you a certain type of medication to save your life.

[00:14:36 - 00:15:08] Speaker: Unknown
There's like there are there are there's a major need for these. And it's improved health care and it well, it's improved health care in that way. But there are certain things, businesses that work off of a cloud computing system. They have their entire company database, everything that they work in the cloud. And this way I can go to a computer here, or I can go and use somebody's computer in Alaska, and I'm going to be able to access my entire company through this data center, important stuff.

[00:15:08 - 00:15:34] Speaker: Unknown
But the, the other is there government and defense in there, too? Government in defense, obviously there's some it's extremely important for national security. That seems to be the buzzword of why they're trying to get us to accept these. Right? That's what they keep saying is it's, national security. We need to beat China and all the AI races.

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The is the end race. Yeah, it's like the moonshot of the the new world. Yeah. And then, what do you have to add to data centers? Well, you pretty much covered it, you know. But were you asking for that or were you asking what's physically inside of these buildings? No, I'm asking for, like, what they're used for.

[00:15:56 - 00:16:15] Speaker: Unknown
Okay. So in other words, like, you can have any building and put like a Talbots in it or a Sears. Why what what why are they being built. That's what I want. Like what is the what is the reason for like these things have existed for a long time in a different places. Why now in such mass.

[00:16:15 - 00:16:48] Speaker: Unknown
Mass produced ways. Pretty much what Jamie said, you know, because one of the things that he's, that we found out down in Ashburn that really blew my mind. And I forget whether it was Switzerland or Sweden, but like 100% of their internet goes through Ashburn. A foreign country halfway around the world uses Ashburn, Virginia for all of their internet traffic, which to me dispels the argument of, of like what we need them close because you have something called latency.

[00:16:48 - 00:17:06] Speaker: Unknown
So when you have something called latency I was looking I was looking it up. Why do they need to be built that close? Most of it has to do with stock trading. Right. So if you can get your latency from like 12 milliseconds to like 11 milliseconds, it could mean billions for like how much you could make and trade.

[00:17:06 - 00:17:28] Speaker: Unknown
That's one of the reasons why. But like for the rest of the reasons, I don't see like does anybody really notice a two millisecond delay on any of the information? What do you think what you said about about Wall Street and things of that nature. That is true. You know, a lot of this, I think I can't say for sure is financially driven.

[00:17:28 - 00:17:52] Speaker: Unknown
I really do think that. I do believe that, we already the United States already has more data centers than any, any country in the world. Yeah. I mean, and based on the proposals across this country right now and what we already have, it's like, how many do we need? Like, are we doing this less efficiently than China?

[00:17:52 - 00:18:24] Speaker: Unknown
I mean, well, China really isn't have rules. So like they do whatever they want to do. But I'm saying they have far less data centers than we do. I mean, are are we doing it less efficiently? I mean, I don't I mean, I don't know so much for to that my thoughts on that and who the hell am I is that, look, at some point people are going to have to acknowledge that as what's the one thing God isn't making more of land.

[00:18:24 - 00:18:38] Speaker: Unknown
So the people who own this land are going to benefit from it. You know, one of the studies that I saw was like, if you want to if you don't want any of these data centers in rural communities, you can just literally get like a swath of land in Arizona that no one's using and just build them all there.

[00:18:38 - 00:18:58] Speaker: Unknown
You could run the infrastructure and probably at less of a cost than it would be to, you know, invade these communities. So I don't know, like everybody's making money everywhere except the people who, like, have to be surrounded by these data centers who are getting nothing in return. No benefit. So when you were down there, what did you talk to any residents?

[00:18:59 - 00:19:02] Speaker: Unknown
There were none.

[00:19:02 - 00:19:28] Speaker: Unknown
Honest to goodness, we we we did. You know, the walking trail where we went through and yeah, we're we're standing underneath 500 kV lines. Yes. Yeah. Is that blow your mind or what the. And as far as you could see. So we did I did a live stream with Jenny yesterday and that's one of them. Make sure you get close that that's the one of the things that I said was like, okay, so they have a macadam biking trail.

[00:19:28 - 00:19:53] Speaker: Unknown
Yep. And then they have a gravel walking trail and as far as you can see, this trail goes looks like for miles right and right above it. So these people are going out there to get healthy right. They're exercising. Yeah. While the entire journey through the Van Allen radiation belts. Yes. Yeah. There we are being exposed to Major league, you know, electromagnetic fields.

[00:19:53 - 00:20:06] Speaker: Unknown
It's just it's just so weird. It's just what's what's so nice. So then I'm we're on that path, and I'm like, I got to take you down. I said, I don't know, it's a little chilly out, I don't know, this time of year I got to take you down and show you the lantern flies that are all around.

[00:20:06 - 00:20:22] Speaker: Unknown
Remember the bottom? Yeah. Bottom of there now, they weren't there. He said, well, it's 50 degrees this January, so. Yeah. He said that was one of the bizarre things where it's like, why are these lanternfly surrounded by all this telecom electricity shit? And I never looked into like why they would do that. Maybe they're attracted to it.

[00:20:22 - 00:20:48] Speaker: Unknown
But so, so okay. What are like inside you can't wait. We were you asked if we talked to any residents. Yeah. So sorry. There was a lady on the walking trail and Pam that was over that stopped her and said, hey, we're from Pennsylvania. We're here, you know, because data centers are coming to our area. And, she goes, she goes, how how do you do this?

[00:20:48 - 00:21:12] Speaker: Unknown
Like, how do you live here? How do you manage this? And she said, what was her response? She just kind of, like, shrugged her shoulders and she said, it's okay. So it's all right? Yeah, it's all right. It's all right. And so the whole story about the frog in the boiling pot of water versus just dropping, you know that.

[00:21:12 - 00:21:33] Speaker: Unknown
Why don't you turn the temperature up? Don't you turn a temperature? You put a frog in cold water and slowly turn that temperature up over 20 years. These people are just like, yeah, but here again, we don't know if she was a real human. Well, I mean, look, there's a psychology to that because like, look, you guys, you guys live in a like a little bit more rural part of the PA than, let's say I do.

[00:21:33 - 00:21:53] Speaker: Unknown
Right? So I've, I've lived in basically cities and populated places most of my life. And I've always noticed this about like billboards, potholes, stuff like that. Like you notice it for like the first 2 or 3 days and then you it's totally escaped your memory. And you don't see it as a burden because it's almost like you subconsciously acquiesce.

[00:21:53 - 00:22:09] Speaker: Unknown
It's like a stick. It's like a stick up on your desk. Yep. And you just kind of like it's a psychology of people that I think like that has to be brought into the equation. You know, it's like, oh, let's go to this place where these people are just really easy to zombies to screw over, and they kind of accept their fate.

[00:22:09 - 00:22:29] Speaker: Unknown
You know, it's like there's an old joke about Scranton that if everybody woke up tomorrow and the streets were lined in horseshit, everyone would just buy taller boots. And I've always thought about that. Like with stuff like this, you know, it's like these poor people who who feel that they have. No, they've almost accepted their fate, that they have no control over their destiny.

[00:22:29 - 00:22:52] Speaker: Unknown
And they don't stand up and they don't say anything to anybody, and they don't. And like, look, most people don't want to be the people that are like, I'm causing a ruckus. I want to keep their head down. They want to do the right thing as far as they see it. And they really don't get like the people who are against these data centers or who are for the the data centers, the for ones are not very vocal.

[00:22:52 - 00:23:13] Speaker: Unknown
The against ones are. But it's a I think it's a minority of people who are vocal because most people don't want to rock the boat. Well, there's no question about that. There's absolutely we see it in our own township, you know, you may have 30 or 40 people behind you in a meeting, but never do they get up to speak.

[00:23:13 - 00:23:30] Speaker: Unknown
You know, they always tell you, you should say this. You should say that it's always the same 4 or 5 people, and I'm 100% certain those people are sitting in those chairs and they have thoughts running through their mind and they're saying, oh, I would love to say this, but I don't want to look stupid, or they just criticize, right?

[00:23:30 - 00:23:49] Speaker: Unknown
And listen, the first time you get up at that podium at any time, it's a little terrifying. It's it's a little terrifying, right? But guess what? After the first time it gets easier. Second times, third time, 10th time. It's like, yeah, it's pretty good. Right? So but for them to take that first step, it just doesn't seem to happen.

[00:23:49 - 00:24:08] Speaker: Unknown
And so yes, some of us have to get up there and speak for everyone. Yeah, yeah. My mom has this thing that my dad, my grandfather taught her, who was like an like an Irish of like nine kids. Like, there was all like. And they grew up, like, literally dirt poor, like dirt floor in the house. And my mother was always had this thing.

[00:24:08 - 00:24:24] Speaker: Unknown
She goes, if not me, who, you know, and there's there's a lot to be said for those people who stand up for the other people. So I applaud you guys for doing it. And I'm sure, I'm sure you didn't want to. This was not on your bucket list of shit that you wanted to deal with. This is not, it's not even remotely on all those on my list.

[00:24:24 - 00:24:54] Speaker: Unknown
But, you know, the thing is, though, like. And this isn't about money. I don't care how much money an entity makes. God bless you. If that's your if that's your goal, that's your drive in life. All the power to you. The problem that I have is when people are getting screwed. Yeah. I don't I don't like and I don't like, you know, they, they this this non-disclosure.

[00:24:55 - 00:25:15] Speaker: Unknown
Right? All this hidden information, it's all if you sign a non-disclosure. Who's doing that? Oh, a lot of the township supervisors are doing that with the elected officials. Have to sign non-disclosure. I don't know about elected officials, but. Oh, they're appointed by the elected officials. Right. The township supervisors. So the people who are elected to appoint the township supervisor are are signing documents.

[00:25:15 - 00:25:36] Speaker: Unknown
They can't they can't look at some of the supervisors or to know the township supervisors are the elected people. So they're signing NDA. We don't we don't know if they're signing them. If the if their solicitor is signing them. But they it comes to the point where they get handcuffed. Did you hear rumors of non-disclosure agreements? Oh, no.

[00:25:36 - 00:26:02] Speaker: Unknown
They're they're real. They're real. And in fact, so like so like like, wait, let me just sometimes I have to dumb it down so I understand it. So theoretically, what you're saying is, is I vote for you to represent me, and some corporation makes you sign an NDA that you therefore cannot talk about a business deal with the area that you were there to represent.

[00:26:02 - 00:26:22] Speaker: Unknown
Am I understanding this correctly? Right? Does that sound crazy to everyone else? It's it's a really crazy. Okay, how do they lock them into these NDAs and how do they sign them? Like what? Well, like what would motivate some sort of elected official to be like, yeah, this is I'll sign this. And I'm not trying to like, tell anybody under the boss or anything.

[00:26:22 - 00:26:44] Speaker: Unknown
I'm just like, the only thing I can think of is that, they say, you know, hey, we have an opportunity for your township. It's going to bring millions of dollars in revenue. It's going to help your people. You know, they kind of like. But we can't tell you who it is and what it's all about until you sign an NDA agreement.

[00:26:44 - 00:27:04] Speaker: Unknown
And, you know, and then as part of that NDA agreement, there's, all kinds of things, you know, we're starting to get our hands on some across the state. How about a CBA? What's that? Community benefit agreement? I don't know that I'd like. I just don't know what that is. What is that you want to explain to Jimmy?

[00:27:04 - 00:27:32] Speaker: Unknown
I why don't you? Okay, so he talks enough. You got that right. So they'll go into now this is different than an NDA. Yeah, obviously. So they'll go into a township and they'll they'll talk to the powers to be and and they'll say to them, okay, look, if we could come to an agreement here, this is what we're going to offer you for your community.

[00:27:32 - 00:27:57] Speaker: Unknown
And they'll have it structured in like maybe three payments. And the first payment might be for the, approval of the application, maybe a half a million that goes directly to the township. Then the next payment will be for another, step in, in in the application procedure. And that might be 1.5 million. And then, and then there'll be a final payment.

[00:27:57 - 00:28:28] Speaker: Unknown
I mean, some of these things are for $5 million for the small townships. That's a big chunk of money for them. It's a big chunk of money. So now they start thinking, you know, look, think of the stuff we could do with this money. The money's real. I mean, make no mistake about it. Townships that are limited on funds, that money and the taxes from those businesses, if they were to come, would be a great help.

[00:28:28 - 00:28:50] Speaker: Unknown
But here's part of the problem with taxes. Most of them won't come in without a ten year tax abatement, right? Which means you don't get a nickel for ten years for Alerta. Well, it's structured okay, but you won't get the full benefit of the taxes till after ten years. Now I know where this is going. Okay, here's the problem.

[00:28:50 - 00:29:09] Speaker: Unknown
Let's just say in ten years, technology advances to a point where these types of data centers are no longer required. I mean, it could happen. It may happen. I think it's I think it's called Moore's Law or something like that, where like every 18 months, technology doubles. So hard drive space, GPUs, CPUs, all those things. Yeah. All right.

[00:29:09 - 00:29:36] Speaker: Unknown
So, these things could literally disappear before you, you realize any, any real benefit from from the taxes and, so it's a bad deal. And so it's just that upfront money that some of these municipalities are getting offered and, you know, they call it, community benefit. It's almost like, you know, a bribery. And the biggest problem seems that way.

[00:29:36 - 00:30:09] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. The biggest problem with it is it's not a cooperative effort between the citizens and the supervisors. Right. Let's bring it to a vote. Let's let let's discuss this. Let's let's talk about it. It's not like that. It's three men who are being advised by a solicitor as to what to do. That's the problem. And solicitors actually do have a lot of control over situations because they instill fear in the elected officials, because the elected official doesn't have a law degree and has no idea what they can and cannot do.

[00:30:09 - 00:30:20] Speaker: Unknown
So what they do is they take the position of, I'm going to trust my solicitor on this one. Well, let's just take, for example, take a township.

[00:30:20 - 00:30:44] Speaker: Unknown
That has a total budget for a year of less than $400,000. Right. Are there townships around here with those budgets? Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. And somebody comes up with 6 million. Yeah. Yeah. Well of course it. Okay. Well here's here's the thing. What do you think the typical responsibilities of those three supervisors are on a normal basis? In what way?

[00:30:44 - 00:31:16] Speaker: Unknown
Like what their views are. Yeah. I make sure the potholes are patched. Make sure the roads are plowed. Yep. Try to to squeak through the year to, you know, stay within in the money that's there because they're within their means. Live within their means. Right. So not very taxing stuff right. Then all of a sudden they're hit with lawyers when suits and politicians and all the stuff is hitting them all at once.

[00:31:16 - 00:31:42] Speaker: Unknown
Most of these guys, you know, their level of expertise, their education, their, their, what they've done for a living their whole life doesn't prepare them for this. Right? Absolutely. Your up. So now they get now it's like I'm nervous right. Sure. It's a normal reaction okay. So now sitting next to us is a man with a law degree right.

[00:31:42 - 00:32:23] Speaker: Unknown
An educated man. So it's going to be like okay, I'm not going to say anything until he tells me when to say and what to say. So now that one man has total dominion over them, correct? Yep. Correct. So what happens is these developers know this. They know they only have to get to one person and convince that person their job is done, because now that person is going to control that board of supervisors and guide them as to why we should do this and why we should do that.

[00:32:23 - 00:32:44] Speaker: Unknown
And nobody's claiming corruption. What they're claiming is, is like, like what I would be claiming is, is like, if you're a lawyer and, you know, these people come in and like, well, you know, after you're done doing that, we will help you in some way or we will introduce you to these people that will help your law firm or will help your law practice or whatever, and that you don't need an exchange of money or a gift or anything like that.

[00:32:44 - 00:33:07] Speaker: Unknown
It could just be a handshake. Like, this is how easy it is. It could be as simple as, trust me, these guys are very good at what they do. It could be as simple as a nice dinner. And a conversation that's making that individual feel really, really good about them. Sure, sure. It could be that simple. You know the crazy thing about when people think about corruption is they think it's in the millions and in the tens of millions of dollars.

[00:33:07 - 00:33:45] Speaker: Unknown
Like sometimes it's it's literally a dinner at Ruth's Chris. That's and it's that easy. It's that easy with certain people. Yeah. Not everybody. But like that, that should not be allowed. No, that should not be. There should never be coordination between and when when you were fighting the school boards and that was one of the things that really blew my mind, was that how much control a solicitor has over a governing body, they they do because again, especially at the school board level, the these are volunteers.

[00:33:45 - 00:34:15] Speaker: Unknown
They volunteered their time. And for people that don't know school directors, directors don't get paid, they do not get paid. And township supervisors don't get paid handsomely. I mean, we were at the township supervisor yesterday who signed up for this takes absolutely zero pay to do a lot of the work that he does. Except his, monthly allotment of it's like 150, 160 bucks.

[00:34:15 - 00:34:35] Speaker: Unknown
Now that's going up for the next elected officials. But but for right now, that's what it is. That's that's literally one day. What your wife, 100 and 5060 bucks a month for a township supervisor. And now all of the sudden they have this billion dollar companies lawyer. Oh, my God, I didn't imagine the pressure sitting in front of them.

[00:34:35 - 00:34:52] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. And and all they signed up for was they wanted to be a good steward of their township. I want to help my friends and my people and my neighbors. They want to make sure the roads are safe in the in the, in the ice and make sure that it's not icy so someone doesn't get a wreck in the morning on the way to work.

[00:34:52 - 00:35:09] Speaker: Unknown
They want to, they they didn't sign up for this all of a sudden. Right. And so now and they can't resign. No. Yeah. No. They could. Yeah. But nobody wants to be the one who was like, I'm going to resign. Like I, you know, gets in the way. A lot of it did happen down in Salem, didn't Jamie.

[00:35:09 - 00:35:34] Speaker: Unknown
Didn't somebody resign down there recently. Yeah. So and that was a little bit of a different situation. He had purchased property outside of the township and was moving so he couldn't represent them. He couldn't represent them anymore. You would wonder why he was moving. Well, I mean, we don't have to look that far, cuz.

[00:35:34 - 00:36:06] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah, but what was going on at 44 and the mayor and all that stuff, like it's like it's there, it is there. If you just peel your eyes back and watch closely to what's going on. But back to the school boards, you know, their volunteer positions, they a lot of them don't have a lot of degrees, and a lot of them are just community members that want to make sure that they're helping make they're helping.

[00:36:06 - 00:36:29] Speaker: Unknown
I mean, they're donating their time. And it's more time than people think. Oh yeah, you don't just show up to an hour long school board meeting once a month and say, okay, I'll see you next month. Yeah, there's a lot of planning. There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes, and they're volunteering their time. And then, you know, like I said, people show up and they they start telling them, you know, they have to do this and they have to do that.

[00:36:29 - 00:36:50] Speaker: Unknown
And then they rely on that solicitor to, to make all a lot of those decisions. Well, I'll give you an example. So up here we have the North Pocono School District and they're building data centers up there. And they're supposed to be getting don't quote me on any of this, but I think it's like $68 million for the school district right now.

[00:36:50 - 00:37:13] Speaker: Unknown
If you think about school districts, I didn't realize this, but up until like two years ago at the Scranton School District is the largest government budget in the northeast. It's $250 million a year for the school district. Right? So when you think about, like the other school districts who don't have as many kids, $68 million to them is a lot of money.

[00:37:13 - 00:37:31] Speaker: Unknown
And this is not to disparage or besmirch anyone who's a school director anywhere. But like you said, volunteers want to help their community. They don't get paid for any of it. They see $68 million that they're going to get every year, which is means we can get this stuff and that stuff and we can every, every kid will have we'll have new tracks, we'll have new.

[00:37:31 - 00:37:56] Speaker: Unknown
There's one that when you say after ten years and they might disappear, you now have a $68 million budget deficit, and you guys have no plan for it because the data centers just they can just up and leave. Yeah. Let me tell you what else happened. So with government this is what well, this is what scares me about like they're talking about them in Scranton.

[00:37:56 - 00:38:17] Speaker: Unknown
There's a meeting tomorrow night because they're trying to build data centers in the city of Scranton. What happens in, like, ten years when they go away and there's no money there that they were relying on, that nobody budgeted out about what would happen if these things go and no one's saving? No. They're going to spend all that money.

[00:38:17 - 00:38:40] Speaker: Unknown
They're not going to save a dime. How much is the state saving? No. Not right. Okay. Continue your what happens a lot of times. And you got to be really careful with this. So a lot of these errors will will who invite these data centers will take that money. And now they'll infuse that money into the general fund in the main piggy bank.

[00:38:40 - 00:38:58] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. It won't be appropriated like before they take a nickel, they should appropriate. Okay. This is where this money is going to be utilized. They don't do that. A lot of them. Yeah, we can build it. We can rebuild our bridges for the next 30 years. They're not doing that. They're not going to do whatever we're going to do.

[00:38:58 - 00:39:20] Speaker: Unknown
This is a I'm not saying they won't. I just don't have faith that they will. Right. So what happens with government when money goes into a general fund? More often than not it's squandered. Yep. And that's what would happen. Yeah. The county needs a jet. Yeah. You'd be surprised what they would need. All right, let's let's get into like what's in these things.

[00:39:20 - 00:39:43] Speaker: Unknown
So what is what is in the data centers. Is it is it like hardware wise. So the research I did basically says that there's like these bays that you can like lease out or rent out that have hard drives, GPUs for AI or other things. So like, let's say, like Amazon's building, big ones, but let's not use Amazon.

[00:39:43 - 00:40:13] Speaker: Unknown
Let's use like a local tech company who's like, oh, we, we offer services to these businesses. We are going to rent like a bay in the data center that we can tell our clients that they're entirely reliable. And their services should never go down 99.99% of the time. Can you explain that to me? The idea of, reliability, I can, so I've I've been inside, other data.

[00:40:13 - 00:40:32] Speaker: Unknown
Oh. Did you go in one? Yeah, yeah. And you don't feel like if you like, when you walk in, do you feel like I'm trying to understand, like, does the hair stand up? Does like, can you feel because there's a lot of electricity in there. Well, no, it wasn't, it wasn't live yet. Okay. I wasn't alive yet. So it was on a it was under construction.

[00:40:32 - 00:40:51] Speaker: Unknown
But, when you walk in there, the best way I can explain to you, it's like walking into a supermarket with IELTS and a is cages right after aisles, after aisles. And, like you said, you know, if I have a company and I want to rent this space from them, it's, it's, you know, I can rent that space.

[00:40:51 - 00:41:16] Speaker: Unknown
They say that, we guarantee that will be up 99.99% of the time. That's the reliability that they're promising to, their clients. And so if if I have a business in California and I have a data center that's housing because I get at a better rate because I, you know, it might be more expensive. It's like housing, right?

[00:41:16 - 00:41:50] Speaker: Unknown
Sure. I can I can rent a data center space in northeastern Pennsylvania for pennies on the dollar versus the ones in California. Yeah, right. So it's just like real estate. And, I guarantee you, 99.99% of the time, because they can't guarantee 100%. Right? You can't do that. And, this way, you know, if you're in California and you're not going to have reliability issues with your business, it's not going to hurt your business in any way.

[00:41:51 - 00:42:18] Speaker: Unknown
So the downside of that is everybody that lives in the community, if there's, a water crisis, a, electric outage, the priority in that community that has that data center there, they don't get the priority of the electricity or the water or anything like that. The data center is going to get it over the people that live there.

[00:42:18 - 00:42:37] Speaker: Unknown
So let's let's put this in terms that are easily relatable. So right up the street we have a town called let's say Oliphant. Right. Well we're not going to just let's say that that's the name of the town. Okay. If they built a data center in Oliphant and I don't really know the population of elephants, probably like maybe six, seven, 8000, right.

[00:42:37 - 00:42:59] Speaker: Unknown
If something happens up there with the electricity, because the data center usage is equivalent to what? Do you know the number? Like how many households the data centers are like a data center is equivalent to, I've heard 50,000 homes, 50,000 homes. One data center can can supply energy to 50,000 homes. Okay. Well let's use that as an example.

[00:42:59 - 00:43:21] Speaker: Unknown
Let's see, let's, let's let's just let's just say that that's correct. So if anything happens in that town electricity wise, power wise, the it it's safe to say that there will be a circumstance where everyone loses power except for the data center. Or if you're in that grid circuit, you know, we are so much the towns to grid.

[00:43:22 - 00:43:31] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. Okay, so explain the grids to me. Well, it's it's like, if you can. I know you don't work for people now.

[00:43:31 - 00:43:59] Speaker: Unknown
So how do you know about, like, PJM Pennsylvania. Jersey, Maryland? No, that whole thing, they're like the wholesaler of electric grid close to that. To there, like the wholesaler of electricity. Yeah, like so they generate power. Well, they kind of. They're they're they're the Wizard of Oz. They're the one who says who gets power. What, where and how and how much how we distribute it.

[00:43:59 - 00:44:25] Speaker: Unknown
Right? Okay. So people and and companies like that who are all part of this network, well, they'll, they'll bid on, on electricity. So there's a difference between power generation and power distribution, correct? Yes. Okay. Keep going. And so all of this energy goes into the grid, what the grid is I can't exactly tell you. So it's Tron.

[00:44:25 - 00:44:58] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. So, if there's an issue in the grid, for example, because this energy shared all over the place, it's not just like, okay, it's it's Scranton or it's it's Hazleton or whatever. This energy is shared everywhere. And, if there's a shortage, if there happens to be a shortage because and that's what they're talking about now, we're not producing enough energy in this country, but we're promising a lot of energy to all of these different places.

[00:44:58 - 00:45:26] Speaker: Unknown
So if it continues on the path that it's on, if we don't start producing energy or we don't require the data centers to put their own site specific energy producing facility next to it, right, we're going to start realizing shortages. So now picture a very, very hot day in the summer, 95 degrees. Everyone's running their air conditioning and these data centers are full bore.

[00:45:26 - 00:45:31] Speaker: Unknown
They get, you know, 80% of them up that they wanted.

[00:45:31 - 00:45:55] Speaker: Unknown
One is not on the left. No. If electricity go around, those data centers have to stay online. Their priority, which means mom and pop home owner. They may have no lights. Could be a blackout. Small businesses, small businesses. Yeah, stuff like that. Hospitals will stay on, data centers will stay on the rest of us. Well, and maybe summertime is a bad example.

[00:45:55 - 00:46:17] Speaker: Unknown
Let's go winter time. Sure. When it's in the teens, when when people really do need heat. Electric heat. Yeah, right. Yeah. Any kind of heat. Yeah. Electricity is part of any kind of heat. Yep. Mostly any kind of heat. Now that becomes a real problem. So because if you can't blow the air in your furnace, you're going to freeze.

[00:46:17 - 00:46:40] Speaker: Unknown
And let's say it's, let's say it's for by by an hour on the global warming thing, more people die from coal than they do for me. So, yeah, this winter's more dangerous for people with without any quote, any environmental control. So I mean, so that is that that's, you know, that's a reality that that may happen. It's likely to happen.

[00:46:40 - 00:47:00] Speaker: Unknown
So because we have it because we also have an aging infrastructure, we do have an aging infrastructure, but we're not producing enough energy. That's the bottom line. And and and any expert will tell you the same thing. We are not producing enough energy here in this country. So no matter what, no matter what anybody says about anything, there's literally not enough.

[00:47:00 - 00:47:19] Speaker: Unknown
Let's use gasoline. There's not enough gasoline to go around to power the car. If we build all these places. Right, because the fuel is not there, right? Am I saying this right now? You're shaking your head. I don't know, I'm just trying to use electricity is such a weird thing because no one understands how it's, like, made or stored.

[00:47:19 - 00:47:42] Speaker: Unknown
So gasoline is like an easy one to understand. Yeah. But I yeah I don't know about that but, but, but like I said you know if they don't start building new power plants and then that brings in a whole other thing. Like people don't want power plants. You know what I mean. But if you're going to put all of these data centers in, you have to produce the electricity.

[00:47:42 - 00:48:08] Speaker: Unknown
That's the bottom line. Are there any are they doing anything? I mean, I Trump did that thing today that I sent you or like yesterday where he basically said that he's going to make sure that like the tech companies have to build their own power plants. Yeah, I saw I read that where you sent to me. It needs to happen quickly, and we're already experiencing levels.

[00:48:08 - 00:48:38] Speaker: Unknown
I just right before I went on the Rob O'Donnell show, I got a message from somebody. She's like my my electric electric bills. Double double from last month. Like we're we're headed towards a clip here. And, you know, we just got out of this regional greenhouse gas initiative in Harrisburg. So that's going to, loosen regulations a little bit to get to, to, for to allow us because we haven't been able to produce any new energy since 2019.

[00:48:38 - 00:49:04] Speaker: Unknown
That's when Tom Wolfe got into the regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and so did Maryland, and so did Virginia. And so we're supplying neighboring states with their power, and we don't even have enough power. That's true. Yeah, that's very true. That's true. So the state of Pennsylvania is supplying Virginia and Maryland with power Jersey. Really. Yeah. Because they don't want they don't want to produce energy.

[00:49:05 - 00:49:31] Speaker: Unknown
Why are we not driving around in Ferrari's if we're giving all these other states our power? I know that we're paying to build and, and, you know, the president's paying to build infrastructure for, for ratepayers to power Virginia, Maryland, in new Jersey. When we're paying for infrastructure. I don't know how much what the percentages, but I know the ratepayers in Virginia are paying for their, you know, their distribution, infrastructure.

[00:49:31 - 00:50:01] Speaker: Unknown
Like I tell you what we do pay for. So any new infrastructure, for example, this 12 mile proposed line in Sugarloaf, it's called socialization. All of the ratepayers will pay for that line, not the end user, all the ratepayers. So everyone who has a house or anyone who has a business, anyone who pays a bill to people, they're paying for that line if it happens and there's going to be some sort of thing on the bill that says, or they leave it, they'll hide it.

[00:50:01 - 00:50:24] Speaker: Unknown
No, it's there, it's there. And I forget how it's categorized. So like, you guys live a little rurally if you buy a plot of land off the beaten track and let's say you want to be a mile into the woods off the main road, right? Does people or any of the power companies or the, the, the utility companies run service to your house, or do you have to pay for that?

[00:50:24 - 00:50:46] Speaker: Unknown
I can talk from my my brother's perspective. When he built his home. Now, this was 20 years ago. He was he was back a half a mile. Oops. Just say maybe, maybe a little less quarter of a mile to a half a mile somewhere in there. He had to pay for that to come to his house. So he had to pay for the electricity, the water, the sewer, if he had a sewer.

[00:50:46 - 00:51:07] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah, he had to pay for that infrastructure to come back to his private house. So he himself had to pay for that. Yeah. Now, what I'm saying is these data centers don't pay for that. They do not. They do not. Now, there's been some grumbling in government where they're starting to like, say, okay, this this is really not fair.

[00:51:07 - 00:51:33] Speaker: Unknown
Like, but nothing's happened yet. Like there there's been talk about wait a minute. The end user has to pay for this stuff like homeowners and everyone else who benefit zero from it shouldn't be paying for this. And but nothing's happened yet. And then on top of that, I just lost my train of thought. I just want the end user stuff.

[00:51:33 - 00:52:05] Speaker: Unknown
They're paying for rumblings. And the end user. Yeah. So large use customers data center, for example. They get cheaper electricity rates than you and I for our homes. Because what they're buying in bulk because they're buying in bulk. Okay. So which kind of makes sense. Right. But so the homeowners paying business owner, they're paying for the infrastructure for the end user who's not paying.

[00:52:05 - 00:52:31] Speaker: Unknown
He he pays a portion just like everyone else does. The end user will pay a portion like everyone else does, but he's gaining all the benefit from it, and then he's going to pay less for his electricity than we are. So there's should be equivalent across the board for something to be equal. Well, first of all, they should pay for the entire transmission line because it's for it's the service their business.

[00:52:31 - 00:52:35] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. And

[00:52:35 - 00:52:58] Speaker: Unknown
You know, as far as the lesser, electricity rate, there's arguments on that. Some people will say no, they should pay the same. Some people say, well, they're using more, they should pay less. But. And that in that arena, with they should pay the same as everyone else. What about water? How's the water situation work? It generates heat.

[00:52:58 - 00:53:24] Speaker: Unknown
Is it a closed loop system? Is it filtered? Siphoned from somewhere else? Where does the discharge go? So in Virginia, we we were talking about this a little bit earlier. Basically a lot of that water gets evaporated during, you know, you know, when it's cycling. So there's a lot of evaporation, there's a lot of evaporation that happens while it's cooling.

[00:53:24 - 00:53:55] Speaker: Unknown
Right? Because it's it it's going through these pipes and it's, it's cooling. So it's going to naturally evaporate a little bit. And then when it comes out, it, it has to go through like a wastewater treatment facility. And in Virginia, what they do is it is they will return that water after it's treated chemically, chemically, and it goes back into the Potomac River or a nearby stream or something like that.

[00:53:56 - 00:54:18] Speaker: Unknown
But it has to go like to the wastewater facility first, and then it goes through there for treatment, and then it goes back out into the lakes or among the rivers and streams, and that goes into the bay, and it goes into the bay. So. So when I was a kid, I was never told to drink the water from someone downstream taking a pee.

[00:54:18 - 00:54:45] Speaker: Unknown
Is that equivalent? Is that fair? They would argue no, but yeah. Logically, yeah. What are they treating this? So they're treating this water just like they would at any other, let's say, community that has some sort of waste management water treatment facility. Yeah. So I don't know exactly the chemical compound or chemical, but they they do. So what's given back is that H2O.

[00:54:45 - 00:55:11] Speaker: Unknown
They we don't know. They say it's returning cleaner than it went in. But that does that mean like devoid of minerals and all the good stuff that like the fish need in the plant life and all that downstream, or we don't know, we don't know, we don't know. And that's the problem. Like, I think the problems in Virginia, because of the capacity that they have there and everything, that they're returning back to the rivers and streams, I don't think you're going to see the effects of that for the next 10 to 15 years.

[00:55:11 - 00:55:28] Speaker: Unknown
It's it's like what they did here with the coal mines. Right? You know, we have the total places of the river that nothing grows and it just looks it looks like somebody dropped in it said, look, you know, it looks like it looks like when you when you see a ship at the bottom of the ocean and there's that orange rusty thing to it.

[00:55:28 - 00:55:46] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah, old Forge, but there's whole parts of the river that are just like that. Yeah. All these proposals that they have, they're all nice and shiny, right? Are all completely safe. You could drink to stuff like, oh, you could, you know, but ask them to take the first sip. That won't happen. Right. Or put it in writing that.

[00:55:46 - 00:56:12] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. So and by the time here's what happens by the time the problems occur, whether it's something with the environment or whether it's vibration in a neighboring community or sound or whatever, by the time the problem rears its head, it's too late. And here's why.

[00:56:12 - 00:56:39] Speaker: Unknown
The billion dollar company has all the money in the world to pay the attorneys to say, that's not from us. We didn't cause that. Okay, well, how are you? How's homeowner? How's the Joe homeowner going to hire lawyers to say no, this is your problem, and it needs to be fixed. They can't. So again, once the problem arises, game over.

[00:56:39 - 00:57:02] Speaker: Unknown
They know there's no way to fight back. There's no. And how's the. How's the municipality with a $400,000 budget going to fight that? They're not. They're not. And that's the thing. And that's why these municipalities have to be extremely careful. And, you know, I don't get it these days. Like the first responsibility of government of at any level is to protect their constituents.

[00:57:02 - 00:57:34] Speaker: Unknown
And that's kind of not what's happening, you know, and it's it's it's frustrating. It really is. I mean, and I think people across the country are starting to feel that way with government in general. Can you explain to me a curative amendment? Yeah. This seems to be the bane of your existence. Yeah. So yeah, go, go go. If you're if you're township or municipality, if in your zoning court, code, you, you don't recognize a certain industry, right?

[00:57:34 - 00:58:04] Speaker: Unknown
You're required to recognize all industry. Yeah. Into your industrial area, for example. Well, of course, no one really ever thought about data centers. I mean, around here, it's kind of like a new thing, right? Yeah. So almost no municipality has a data center ordinance in place. So what? What is it under right now? Like what would like, like what would be the zoning ordinance that it would be under.

[00:58:04 - 00:58:24] Speaker: Unknown
So in other words, all industrial like what would it be. Well, in in our case it's industrial. Right. Okay. I don't think they consider data centers industrial. Yeah. It's hard to get that answer, particularly if it's if it's light industrial, heavy industrial, it's hard to get that answer. But yeah, it's it wouldn't be allowed to go like where a mall is.

[00:58:24 - 00:58:51] Speaker: Unknown
Right. Right. But so the a developer will come along and he'll select the township where he wants to put this data center. And if they're if they're zoning code, the, code does not have an ordinance in there for, for data centers. They'll hire a law firm, and the law firm will will, hit the township or whatever with what's called a curative amendment.

[00:58:51 - 00:59:18] Speaker: Unknown
And that's designed to force that particular township to generate an ordinance so that they could be accepted and put an application in to put this data center up. The curative amendment will have certain language in there that is solely.

[00:59:18 - 00:59:50] Speaker: Unknown
The, the, the developers and their representation. It's solely their perception of what that ordinance should look like, like their interpretation of it, their interpretation of it. Okay. Which is always obviously their side. Yeah. Benefits them. Yeah. So then you're, you're you're kind of in a position where, a municipality has to make a decision. They could either accept it and try to work out a deal where, okay, we're going to give you some input.

[00:59:50 - 01:00:12] Speaker: Unknown
You give us some input and they try to work to, to a common agreement, or they could decline it. And it kind of goes to the county court, and then the court could decide whether this curative amendment is fair or it's not. Or the court could say to the two parties, we'd like you to kind of work this out.

[01:00:12 - 01:00:40] Speaker: Unknown
So if you deny that the the developer can sue. Yes. To get it in court to force you. Yes. Okay. Keep going. Yep. So you know, that's that's basically it. That's the short version of it. So if the two sides can't decide, a court could rule that the curative amendment stands, or he could rule that, okay, we're going to meet a middle ground here.

[01:00:40 - 01:01:06] Speaker: Unknown
You know, I like some of the stuff the township has. I like some of the stuff the the developer has. We're going to find a middle ground. Or he can say, look, this township is well within the law. It's not asking for anything unreasonable. Their their ordinance is good. And developer you take it or you leave it. So it could go a few different directions.

[01:01:06 - 01:01:27] Speaker: Unknown
But again you just don't know which way it's going to fly. You just don't know. So you try to you try to put together a good ordinance that's going to protect your residents, your constituents. And, you take it from there. Talk to me about the, the the power lines. Talk to me about like, what does that mean?

[01:01:27 - 01:01:52] Speaker: Unknown
Like yours? Like your property. I've been to your property of senior property. I've seen where the old power lines used to be. That's going to be totally destructive to your property. Yeah, because now what? What kV lines are they trying to put through your property? 500. And what's the minimum safe distance from a 500 kV power line for EMF radiation?

[01:01:52 - 01:02:48] Speaker: Unknown
Well, here again, you know, here in America studies get squashed, right? Right. Inconvenient studies too. Right? Right. You know, Pennsylvania power and light will tell you that, you know, you could be 100ft away and they're safe. And there's so many studies showing that not to be true. So there's a lot of there's a lot of dangers aside of electromagnetic fields and just for example, so, you know, there's there's multiple conductors, the wires that run across from pole to pole, they break free, whether it's from wind or ice or, or malfunction, whatever the case may be, they do have safeties, but those safeties fail and they fail often.

[01:02:48 - 01:03:13] Speaker: Unknown
So one one of those conductors come down and they hit the ground, or they hit a tree or they hit whatever. It's an export. That much. But that size line, it's an explosion. It's a fire. And anyone that's anywhere near there dead, I mean, that's the bottom line. And you see, if you see humans have been killed that way, animals have been killed that way.

[01:03:13 - 01:03:40] Speaker: Unknown
You know, so so you have that you have the electromagnetic fields, that you're being constantly exposed. So as long as you're at your home, when you're sleeping, when you're in the yard and you're playing, your kids are playing or whatever, they're it's so close. They're being constantly exposed to those electromagnetic fields. There's a lot of things,

[01:03:40 - 01:03:53] Speaker: Unknown
Not to mention what those size poles and those size wires, what it does to the value of your property. You know, that you worked for your whole life.

[01:03:53 - 01:04:11] Speaker: Unknown
Lost and your loss of privacy. I mean, it just it just goes on and on and on. It's just such a bad, bad deal. How much would your property go down? Well, because how they. How you going to sell it? Cause nobody wants to live next to that thing. According to my attorneys who are handling this case, they consider it a complete loss.

[01:04:11 - 01:04:27] Speaker: Unknown
Your property would be a complete loss. That's what they consider a complete loss. Yes. They have a beautiful plot of land there now. Now your family lives on that land, don't they? You've built homes for your kids. Oh, my kids live there. They all have their own homes and have grandkids. Yeah. And they want to put. So how close?

[01:04:27 - 01:04:52] Speaker: Unknown
What's the closest lie like? What would be the closest line to your property or your grand? My daughter and my two grandsons. 100ft. They want to put a 500 kV line a 100ft away from your grandkids. Yes. And they don't see why you have a problem with that. They don't acknowledge the problem. They see it. I know they do, because I've had them there and I've talked to them.

[01:04:52 - 01:05:16] Speaker: Unknown
I look in their eyes when I say to them, you know, like, how would you like this in your yard, right? Or do you think this is dangerous for my grandkids? You could see in their eyes, but it'll never come out of their lips, right? They just stand there pretty much emotionless, like they're almost like, like robots.

[01:05:16 - 01:05:41] Speaker: Unknown
That's how they act. Yeah, that's got to be so disconcerting. It is. Oh, I don't I didn't know very, very frustrating. Yeah. So that makes, that makes the motivation for you even higher than most normal people. Oh yeah. Yeah. This, as Jamie knows, this, this is life changing for me and my family. Yes. How many other people along this, of your neighbors are affected by this?

[01:05:41 - 01:06:05] Speaker: Unknown
There's about 90 properties that will be that will be affected. Now, some some people will not be as effective as others, but a lot of people. Yeah. Their, their houses, there's one individual at 60ft from his house and they put this in the plan like they're like, oh, we're just gonna put it in the plan. And if no one complains, we'll just continue through with it, right.

[01:06:05 - 01:06:20] Speaker: Unknown
Is that is that what they're banking on? Well, I say if they could get if they can convince everybody now they've been working on this a long time. They've been working on you say long time. What what is that like, what is that time frame? Well, just the time frame that I'm talking about is just trying to get people to sign their agreement.

[01:06:20 - 01:06:49] Speaker: Unknown
They've been working on that. The 90 properties. Yeah, they've been working on that. Now. It was a year in November. They still have to file a PUC because they don't have enough people signed on. And that's the Pennsylvania Utility Commission. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So that's a little bit of a problem for them to go to PUC. If if 40% of the people or 50% of the people are not in agreement, it's a little harder to convince PUC that this is okay.

[01:06:49 - 01:07:26] Speaker: Unknown
Does that work? Would that would the PUC come into play up here? In Lackawanna County? Because everywhere Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, it's P it's Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission. PUC yep. Pussy. Oh, let's just make it so it's more confusing. But on that, on that point, it's really interesting the that you're, that you brought this up because, you know, I think the, the people in the valley, they understand that people need their electricity to get to where it needs to go.

[01:07:26 - 01:07:53] Speaker: Unknown
So we had asked them, in a meeting, I was in a meeting, out at Senator Culver's office with people and, rap lotto and, representative Musa's, guy, James May, and we were in that meeting, and we're like, can we find a win win here? Why can't you go underground? Oh, we we we are ready.

[01:07:53 - 01:08:24] Speaker: Unknown
We are. We already looked into that. And it's at the in the costs. It's just way, you know, it's way too expensive. No numbers given. No. You know, no actual hard numbers. And James asked them, well, you know, can you get us, a difference. Like James was trying to help and saying, look at if we could save the community, maybe we could get some kind of help from the federal government, since this is kind of a it's kind of a different situation that that peoples dealing with.

[01:08:24 - 01:09:02] Speaker: Unknown
You know, he he didn't promise them anything or he didn't say, we can definitely do this, but you trying to explore an option. Give the congressman, all the information and let him see what he can do with it. And, they told him that they will get him the numbers and that was five months ago. Really? And he repeatedly followed up with people to get the numbers so we could see what this massive difference was, because maybe you could go underground for a couple hundred yards, leave John's family alone.

[01:09:03 - 01:09:30] Speaker: Unknown
Maybe then you can come out of the ground. And, if it's so much cheaper to go above ground. But then they told me that the, the they also told us in that meeting that running underground actually, it's is, that there's more potential for for failure, like more potential for, you know, if they have some breaks, we don't have the breaks.

[01:09:30 - 01:09:57] Speaker: Unknown
They can't get to it as easily and fix it, which that makes sense. Right. But it's also not out in the, whether to get. Yeah. Damaged. Damaged. Yeah. So it just not nothing that they are telling us adds up. Makes any sense. And they just want to do it the way they want to do it. And they just do not care about the people that live there.

[01:09:57 - 01:10:06] Speaker: Unknown
What what are the okay, what are the pros to having a data center.

[01:10:06 - 01:10:26] Speaker: Unknown
So tax revenue, as long as it's used correctly and as long as it's not a tax abatement for ten years. Yeah. Which is what. What was that called again the Alerta. So what was the other one. The. Oh no no that's totally different okay. Keep on learning. So that the tax revenue would be good for the area.

[01:10:26 - 01:10:50] Speaker: Unknown
Are they applying for learners. Oh yeah. They've already a lot of them have gotten them already. So so they're saying we're going to give you all this money and we're going to apply for Alerta. Okay. And so the lure to all this in order, in order for someone to get alerted, the, that the township has to sign off on it, the school district and the county, those three entities have to sign off on Alerta.

[01:10:50 - 01:11:23] Speaker: Unknown
So they've, they've gotten alerts for, some of these projects. So they've already gotten approved for these. The developer's been approved and. Okay, so, you know, you talk about the good, it is going to bring some jobs, but not what everybody thinks. So just a real quick example. Down in Berwick or Salem Township, there's going to be 15 Amazon data set data buildings.

[01:11:23 - 01:12:03] Speaker: Unknown
Right. They're going to employ somewhere between 20 to 30 employees each. And we've destroyed 1315 hundred acres for what's 15 times 15 225, I don't know, 225 jobs. Right? 15 times 15 is 225 jobs. If it's 30 a top level 30, we're at 450 jobs. And we've we've destroyed 1500 acres. The all the, environmental impact, it does create amazing construction jobs for a number of years.

[01:12:03 - 01:12:27] Speaker: Unknown
So, you know. Yeah, but the construction thing, they're not there's a caveat to. Yeah. There you go. There you go. They're not all local. There is a there is a portion that are local and there's some local companies doing you know, you know, doing great with it. But a lot of the workforce we're not prepared for here in Luzerne County.

[01:12:27 - 01:12:47] Speaker: Unknown
So they're bringing people in from Maryland. They're bringing them in from Massachusetts. So it's, because it's a specialized thing, right? Like just to just to build to build the insides of these things. No, not necessarily, but, you know, so what happens is the unions, they only have so many people in the hall. Right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[01:12:47 - 01:13:06] Speaker: Unknown
And it's going to be union shops doing these jobs. So you have a massive one going down in Salem Township. You may not have enough people if 2 or 3 other ones pop up. So now you have to go to you've just emptied out the union hall, right. You have to go to unions elsewhere. You have to bring those folks in.

[01:13:06 - 01:13:10] Speaker: Unknown
And you have to remember that these jobs.

[01:13:10 - 01:13:33] Speaker: Unknown
They don't last that long. These buildings, the construction jobs. Yeah. They go up rather quickly. So you have a couple years. Well, the one we saw was finished in less than three months. Yeah. They go up pretty fast. So you might have these construction jobs for a couple years, and then they're gone. The actual employment inside of the data center, once it's completed is mostly remote.

[01:13:33 - 01:14:03] Speaker: Unknown
So these are daily these are technicians that may be in California, you know, monitoring these things. You have you have jobs like you might have, like, security, maintenance and maybe 1 or 2 technical jobs, but depending on the size, if it's a smaller data center, it could be a handful of people. If it's a massive data set, there might be 25 people.

[01:14:03 - 01:14:24] Speaker: Unknown
And a lot of those people who are like, even if they are on site, are brought in from elsewhere. Are there places who have previous experience in this type of job? It's not just everyone off the street who has that experience, right? Yeah. See what it's like for each one? You'd probably need somebody to manage the building, right?

[01:14:24 - 01:14:39] Speaker: Unknown
I mean, that makes sense, right? I don't know, because we can't I can't really get much information. But all I can tell you is that, you know, one of the things when we were down in Virginia that we didn't because, again, we were so kind of like new it. Yeah. Trying to figure out like what is going on here.

[01:14:39 - 01:14:55] Speaker: Unknown
So it was, it was, it was like it was like walking in the middle of like Iceland. You're just like, oh, this is something I've never seen before in my life. Like there's an oar to it. Yeah. And not not in a positive way. And so we were on like a, we were on a different mission when we went down there.

[01:14:55 - 01:15:17] Speaker: Unknown
We wanted to see as many sites as we could. We wanted to get as much video as we could. We had Vicky with us. You, you know, we had a great, great couple days there. But, one of the things that we didn't really zero in on is the completed centers that are up and running and the lack of automobiles in the parking lots of people working.

[01:15:17 - 01:15:37] Speaker: Unknown
Well, didn't Vicky say that? Well, because you said she she goes, she goes, I don't want to do her voice. She goes, look at the parking lots. There's nobody in the parking lots like you have 30 spots and there's two cars. Yeah, that's exactly how it was this time. Yeah. I mean, we. And then I asked her, I said, who are these people?

[01:15:37 - 01:16:11] Speaker: Unknown
And they're, they're, they're mostly immigrants that come over from. And she said specifically in India. Yeah. Yeah. So we're we're offshoring the jobs for these data centers because we're importing workers who can work on these things. And that's not like to disparage the Indian community or anybody. But that's just the truth of what's happening. So it's not like, and who knows, probably, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm saying this, but maybe a lot of these remote jobs are not in this country, in this country and they're in India.

[01:16:11 - 01:16:35] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. This seems like across the board there's a lot of it seems like a magician's trick. Yeah. It seems like they're they're trying an a sleight of hand for a lot of money. For a lot of money. Well, if you notice when, when the politicians are touting these things, what are they saying? We're going to invest 90 billion, right?

[01:16:35 - 01:16:56] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. It's always we're going to invest this much money okay. What do you invest. You're investing in a structure. And the contents of that structure. Well why is that a big deal. Like how does how is that helping us. How's that helping the ordinary Joe. Yeah, that's like that's like, old Navy saying we're going to invest in all of these things for our shelves.

[01:16:56 - 01:17:25] Speaker: Unknown
And you're like, who's who gives a shit, right? Who care? Who gives a shit about the shelves you're putting in there? But that's what they're boasting. And all all these jobs. Right? But they never clarify that they're construction jobs and that they will dissolve upon completion. Upon completion. And then what's left is what's left. Yeah. And and and again, 90%, 95%, I would say if the people will not benefit from this whatsoever.

[01:17:25 - 01:17:52] Speaker: Unknown
Not directly. So I ask you about the pros economically. What what are the what are the cons? Okay. We don't know all the cons yet. So to start I'll start with the the meat and potatoes of it. So where they're trying to put these things is is destroying like where they're trying to put them around here is destroying our farmlands in our in our, in our wilderness.

[01:17:52 - 01:18:16] Speaker: Unknown
Isn't that protected in our state constitution? Isn't it supposed to be protected in our state constitution? It's supposed to be. Okay. Keep on. That's why I just want to remind everybody the Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Constitution is very strong in that area. Yeah, but doesn't seem to be anyone really enforcing it. Because everything's so secretive. We don't know what the environmental impacts will be.

[01:18:16 - 01:18:41] Speaker: Unknown
We can't we cannot count on DEP to protect us. That's not happening because this is a fast track. I'm going to give you an example. So up here we have a landfill. And when DEP so like there's residents around here that were trying to fight the landfill. Right. And it's it's literally the Davidson David Goliath thing. And when they asked DEP a question about something I remember the DEP guy said, we don't even have Wi-Fi at our office.

[01:18:41 - 01:19:09] Speaker: Unknown
And I was like, Holy shit. Like everybody's screwed. Like they are not equipped for any of this. And I just wanted to elaborate on the point that you're making about DEP trying to help you. Yeah. Well, and they're, they're, you know, they're, they're, they're great people, but they are they are they are stuck. Plus you know, oh well, when your governing agencies are telling you, we want these things, right.

[01:19:09 - 01:19:26] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. The people in charge are saying we want these things. Yep. So who's going to stop that? Right? You. When you're giving your marching orders, you're going to march. That's your job. That's how you're feeding your family, right? Whether you think it's right or wrong or indifference, you're going to work. They're going to take your marching orders.

[01:19:26 - 01:19:50] Speaker: Unknown
I got it just like any other job. Yeah. So we can't count on them. To protect us. We can't get any answers from the developers or their representation. Just for example, in Sugar Loaf, we asked questions to their representation. They're claiming closed loop system. Where's the water coming from?

[01:19:50 - 01:20:22] Speaker: Unknown
I don't know that answer. Okay. When the system has to be recharged, drained and recharged. Wait before you get into that. Yeah. That meaning there was their lawyer. And who else was supposed to be there. We start from the beginning like tell them. So this particular is about water right. Yeah. Okay. This is about the night of the hearing about the ordinance that Sugarloaf is trying to adopt in conjunction with that curative amendment.

[01:20:22 - 01:20:50] Speaker: Unknown
The public was told. Yeah. So that took place on December 30th. The public was told that like two weeks ago. Okay. That the developer would be there. The developers representation and engineers to answer all of our questions. So they have it at a bigger venue. They have it at the firehouse to accommodate all the people.

[01:20:50 - 01:21:16] Speaker: Unknown
Good thing they did 100 people, maybe a little more. So sugar loaf of Sugar Loaf, that's a lot for a lot of people. For December 30th. Yeah. On that day. Okay. Right. Right. In between the holidays. Right? Yep. So we all go there with all of our questions and expecting to get some good input here, a little bit of an education while we get there.

[01:21:16 - 01:21:38] Speaker: Unknown
In the end they have one lawyer there. That's it. No developer, no engineers, no nothing. One lawyer, not even a team of lawyers. One lawyer. So we start asking questions. They sent in the sea team guy who doesn't know the answers. Anything? Yeah. I don't know if she's the C team. She might be the A-Team. I don't know, but.

[01:21:38 - 01:21:54] Speaker: Unknown
So when they don't want to give you an answer, they tell you I don't know the answer. Right? It's better than saying I'm not going to tell you the answer. Yeah, I don't know the answer. It's claim ignorance, right? Yep. And pretty much every question we ask, for the most part it was I don't know the answer. Right.

[01:21:54 - 01:22:23] Speaker: Unknown
So we left there that night, knowing no more than when we walked in where there was nothing. So we still cannot find out where they're getting the water. Originally. One, two, three years that system will have to be regenerated. Where are they going to dump that stuff? She couldn't answer that. So what you're saying is every one of three years, they needed to to totally drain the system.

[01:22:23 - 01:22:49] Speaker: Unknown
That's how I understand it. Okay. All right. That's on a closed loop system. Right? Okay. Right. They're not that's not forever like people think. Closed loop. It's forever. It's not. You know, so we don't know, you know, are they going to draw the water from wells that they're going to draw? Are they going to draw the water from nearby?

[01:22:49 - 01:23:11] Speaker: Unknown
I'll call them ponds. They're not ponds. They're not lakes. They're in between that. All right. We don't know. Are they going to dump it into what's called the Black Creek that runs through the property, which is which is a trout stream, when, when they're ready to, to, to, you know, or if they have a problem, they have to drain some off or they're going to drain it into the Black Creek.

[01:23:11 - 01:23:30] Speaker: Unknown
We don't know. We don't know any of it. You know, I don't know was what we're talking about. Robert, did you have a question? Like what? Mines like coal mines. I didn't have a question about mines, but I love to talk about my row. He was mentioning building them in mines. Someone someone had mentioned that, right? Well, because.

[01:23:30 - 01:23:50] Speaker: Unknown
Because when Trump took over, they found out that a lot of the retirement documents were in a mine and like pay like 10,000 or not, 10,000ft down, but underground. You remember this? No where it was impossible to get people to retire because somebody had to. It's all paper and they had to go to like Elon was talking about it, where they there was a mine in Pennsylvania where all the government workers retirement.

[01:23:50 - 01:24:13] Speaker: Unknown
Well yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they remember that. Yeah. So we have we have mines for that. Yeah. So okay. Keep going. Sorry. But anyway, Rob or one of his callers, I think it was one of maybe one of the callers in the mine or something. So the question I think that was asked was, why can't they build them in all the abandoned, you know, all the abandoned mines that we have?

[01:24:13 - 01:24:27] Speaker: Unknown
And I had asked that question a long time ago, because the Hazleton area has tens of thousands of acres of mines that are no longer active. Yeah.

[01:24:27 - 01:24:53] Speaker: Unknown
And I had asked the question, like, you know, to a very high ranking official politician. So assistant, why are you trying to stick these by people's houses? We have all of this abandoned mine land. It's it's barren. And you could look for as far as you can see. And there is no houses anywhere. Why don't you put them there?

[01:24:53 - 01:25:29] Speaker: Unknown
Well, well, we're worried about structural, you know, because, you know, it was mined and, you know, we're concerned about that, but we are looking into it. Well, turns out we fine. We got the mining maps for Sugarloaf Township. Their entire industrial area, which we thought was only strip mined, which was like surface mining. Turns out, according according to the mining maps, they were all deep mind at one time and there was a landfill there also.

[01:25:29 - 01:25:49] Speaker: Unknown
So questions come to our mind. Well, how can you build these things here if you can't build them on another mine site? And we just we cannot get any answers. It's just like they're blocking us out. Why would they be doing that? Why would they? I mean, is it just money? Is it just is that what it is?

[01:25:49 - 01:26:04] Speaker: Unknown
It's like we just want to get these things done and we're just going to obstruct as much as we can, and we're going to frustrate you to the point. It's like. It's like why nobody calls customer service anymore because it's so goddamn frustrating. So is that it's like they just trying to wait. Where you down?

[01:26:04 - 01:26:24] Speaker: Unknown
Well, I mean, would that be would that be a smart strategy? Let's say just the two of us as two humans, we want to resolve a problem. Is the easier way to have sit down and have reasonable dialog and try to come to a resolution or have a fist fight. Right. It's it's the first one. I'm hoping it's the first.

[01:26:24 - 01:26:49] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah, it's the first one. Right. So you're right. Why isn't that happening? Like, why not come to the to the folks, have a township meeting, have everyone there and say this is who we are, this is who the end user is. This is why we want to do that. And what are your questions? And then you have some dialog.

[01:26:49 - 01:27:17] Speaker: Unknown
Right. But they're not doing that. Everything's behind the curtain right. You never get to see The Wizard of Oz. I always use that because I think it's it's it's just so true. You never get to see The Wizard of Oz. So what ends up happening is when everything's so secretive, people start thinking something has to be bad. Or they would tell us, sure, if something was really good for us, they wouldn't be hiding all this stuff, right?

[01:27:17 - 01:27:41] Speaker: Unknown
Why are they hiding it? So people get suspicious. Then they try to get answers and there's no answers. There's always I don't know, I can't answer that. We'll get back to you. Well, that's the best one, because you know why they never do. And then they hope you forget. Yes. Or they hope something else pops up that you have to turn to and you forget, right?

[01:27:41 - 01:28:05] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. Hopefully a family member gets sick and that's their whatever. Not that or whatever, right? Yeah, I'm counting on it. And then so now they're just bouncing from township to township, and maybe not so much with the power lines. I mean, I that believe me, there's people all through that power line where that power lines going that are they're up in arms.

[01:28:05 - 01:28:28] Speaker: Unknown
But you know that that fight is still going on. So now you have so they get you, they have you, they have us fighting on multiple fronts. You know, you're you're you're fighting about the power line now. You're fighting about the data centers and probably with real transparency, sitting down with the community from day one explaining what a data center is.

[01:28:28 - 01:28:59] Speaker: Unknown
Because 90% of the people never knew what a data center was here six months ago. Now everybody knows. At least they think they know. I mean, I still think that's more appropriate. They think they know. I still I still have tons of questions. I don't have answers to that, with just data centers in general. But, and, and so this could have probably been solved a year ago had they been transparent from day one.

[01:28:59 - 01:29:22] Speaker: Unknown
No NDAs. Hey, we would love to come. Here's what we're going to do. Oh, you don't want the power line going there. Well, maybe we could go around it this way. Maybe we could go underground here. But there was none of that. It was like this plan was set in place five years ago, and they're just getting around to, like, implementing their their game plan.

[01:29:22 - 01:29:50] Speaker: Unknown
And they expect everybody to just say, okay, which I believe that this plan has been in planning for many years. I mean, minimum of five because you don't just you don't just have all these potential sites in line of this 12 mile data center, this 12 mile line, the all of these proposed sites that are now starting to pop up.

[01:29:50 - 01:30:16] Speaker: Unknown
I just had another one pop up last week in another township. Just happens to be right directly in line with this, 500 kV line. It's really convenient. So this this has there has to be a master plan somewhere from someone or people. And they knew this was coming along and they they haven't been transparent with the public.

[01:30:16 - 01:30:37] Speaker: Unknown
What? Let me ask you, what's the what's the tone in Harrisburg about these things? Because it seems like everywhere, everywhere they're trying to go, they're getting pushback. And it's from all political persuasions. So it's funny you bring that up because, there's a, a state rep on my side of the aisle that came up to me who lives, I don't want to point him out, but, you know, we don't need to.

[01:30:37 - 01:30:55] Speaker: Unknown
He he lives in, in more of a of, city area, you know, like Pittsburgh, Harrisburg or Philadelphia. And he heard that I was coming out about these data centers, and, you know what? To his credit, he came right up to me at the end of the session when they said, hey, can we talk for a few minutes?

[01:30:55 - 01:31:19] Speaker: Unknown
I said, sure. So in turn, it turns out, I explained to him why what was happening in my district, and this was before we knew about, Nasca Park Township. This was before we knew about them. Last week I learned about Hollenbeck Township. Now Dorn's Township, I didn't know about that one. So this was really early on.

[01:31:19 - 01:31:41] Speaker: Unknown
It was right after we launched the documentary. He watched the documentary? No, we got in trouble. Yeah. And, he goes, you know, why are you so against these data centers? Obviously he didn't watch it. I explained. Well, no, he he wanted to know like in my district what was okay, okay. And I explained it all to him where they do and he he's like man in my area.

[01:31:41 - 01:32:07] Speaker: Unknown
We want him. We want them in the, the tax revenue and all this stuff. Well, he lives outside of the or he his district is outside of like a major city. There's an old factory there that is has been shut down for years. It just sits there, makes sense, sits there and sits there. And this is a way to get rid of that eyesore.

[01:32:07 - 01:32:26] Speaker: Unknown
Put it on that property and they want them I get it. And he's like, okay. He goes, I thought I was I really thought I was missing something here, like something big here. And I'm like, well, I mean, I have a lot of other questions. I figure was going to Virginia, but, I said, but that what's happening in my ear?

[01:32:26 - 01:32:32] Speaker: Unknown
He's like, oh yeah, hell no. So so it seems like it's it's.

[01:32:32 - 01:32:58] Speaker: Unknown
Geographically specific. Right. Whether or not there's pushback on it or, or there isn't exactly. So are they is is the legislators down in Harrisburg feel like because you're never going to know until a vote comes or a bill comes up or anything like that, but does it seem like the rural ones or some of them are getting like, I'm really surprised that there's like, we're surrounded by a lot of Democrats here, right?

[01:32:58 - 01:33:20] Speaker: Unknown
Like every elected officials, a Democrat, and they're getting so much pushback on these data centers. And then your district is majority Republican and you guys are getting pushback for that. So is it a is it a region thing? Is it like a geography thing or like because it seems like both parties like both are like, no, I don't want this.

[01:33:20 - 01:33:39] Speaker: Unknown
No, I, I think, I mean, it's happening in York County too, and there's, they're getting a lot of pushback down in York County. And so we, we obviously see most of the stuff that's happening here locally in the northeast. And it seems like it's all happening here. Right. But it's not it's happening across the the state. So it's central PA.

[01:33:39 - 01:33:51] Speaker: Unknown
Western PA yeah. How many do you think they're trying to build. There's a that should reference that thing again. Yeah. It was a PA.

[01:33:51 - 01:34:16] Speaker: Unknown
PA data center proposals.com. Yes. I'm assuming that's not paid for by the government. That's some some mom who's like, eff this. Yeah, she's making a website. Yeah. But you know, for for residents like John, this has literally turned his and many others in that area their lives upside down. I mean, I think it's made your lives miserable.

[01:34:16 - 01:34:43] Speaker: Unknown
They talk about this every day. They they they talk about this and text about this. It first thing in the morning, they wake up, the last thing they do before they go to bed, you know, how are we going to, to deal with this? So it's turned people's lives upside down. It should not be this way. And, so, you know, we're obviously looking at some things in Harrisburg.

[01:34:43 - 01:35:07] Speaker: Unknown
Do you want to talk about some of the bills you guys are working on, or is is that too premature? It's it's it's not premature because, you know, there are states that are far ahead of us with putting parameters in place for these data centers, Florida being one of them. Right. Ron DeSantis just came out with, on December 4th.

[01:35:07 - 01:35:35] Speaker: Unknown
He made a post, about, some bills that he was working on. So I spent some time reading through what he is proposing. And there's two parts, and I want to just make sure I have the language correct. One obviously, one part of this is protecting the consumer, right? Protecting children, making sure that they know if they're interacting with AI chat bots.

[01:35:35 - 01:35:59] Speaker: Unknown
Oh that's creepy. Okay. Keep going. I look at I don't even think about that. That's creepy. The, the I don't know if you had a chance to read read much of this, but, so obviously we've already passed, we've already passed legislation to protect, politicians from deepfakes. Oh. Did you. Yeah. Yeah, that was the first thing that was done for for AI down there.

[01:35:59 - 01:36:14] Speaker: Unknown
So I can notice how they took care of themselves. Yeah, yeah. So I can't make any. I can't make any AI memes about you. You can get my permission. I give you permission now. So what if I don't have your permission? Do I get is there did I break a law? Well, then we can either talk about it or have a fist fight.

[01:36:14 - 01:36:40] Speaker: Unknown
Okay, let's imagine it's not you. And so we can. Nobody can make deep fakes of other politicians in the local. Or is it. Is it just. It's state law? Yeah. Yeah, it it can network for like, if anybody wanted it. I'm just trying to understand because like, look, there's a God forbid you know, there's like a person who's getting a data center built in their small town and they're like, I have, you know, ChatGPT or grok or whatever that is.

[01:36:40 - 01:36:52] Speaker: Unknown
And they're like, I really want to make my township supervisor look like a criminal or burglar, like they are they allowed to do that? Or is it just for like state reps and state senators? Let me, let me get back to me, like get back. Yeah. I don't want to give you any. I don't want you in prison.

[01:36:52 - 01:37:14] Speaker: Unknown
No, no, no, I, I don't want anyone else to do it either. Right. So okay. Keep got. But just so you know, they're I'm so happy you guys focus on deepfakes. Yeah. Yeah. Shows where the priorities are shot. But but this is the always. Yeah. This this is called the I want to be made fun of. This is called the, it's going to establish an artificial intelligence bill of rights.

[01:37:14 - 01:37:39] Speaker: Unknown
And this is anybody can look this up. Okay. Look this up. Ron DeSantis published this December 4th of last year. So. And Ardell and an artificial intelligence bill of rights. Okay. And, some of the other things that are protected, it's going to prohibit AI from using an individual's name, image or likeness without their consent. So it's almost like, your intellectual property or likeness rights.

[01:37:39 - 01:37:58] Speaker: Unknown
Okay. Exactly. It's going to require notice to consumers when they're interacting with AI, like the chat bots. I mean, I don't know if you seen what happened across this country already. There's been murders, and suicides over the chat where the chick with the AI is telling them to do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen the AI chat bot was telling them.

[01:37:58 - 01:38:19] Speaker: Unknown
I think it was the parents that, they're using. They're. People are using it. Now, this is the weird part about it is that they're using it almost as a therapist. Yes. And it's it's convincing them, like there was a girl that, it was a couple of years ago. She she was texting this, this boy, and she was convincing him to commit suicide.

[01:38:19 - 01:38:39] Speaker: Unknown
And he did? Yeah. And she went to on trial for it. I think she was found guilty. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, I remember that. And which is also why this is going to prohibit entities from, from providing licensed therapy or mental health treatments with AI. Okay. Because that's, that's what was happening in some of these situations.

[01:38:39 - 01:39:14] Speaker: Unknown
I think there's at least five reported cases across the country where a murder was or a suicide was. A murder or suicide was committed because of an interaction with an AI chat bot. Providing preventable parental controls for minors, which allow parents to access the conversation. So again, protecting children, making sure data input to AI is secure and private, prohibit companies from, selling or sharing personal data, which is a big I think Edward Snowden has convinced us that that is not real and might not ever be real.

[01:39:14 - 01:39:48] Speaker: Unknown
Right, exactly. That's the hope. But they're gonna, so, and and then on the, on the development side of things, the second part of the bill, which is going to protect ratepayers because it's going to prohibit utilities from charging residents more to support these hyperscale data centers. It's going to protect, protect taxpayers. So no taxpayer subsidies can be used for big tech, to protect local control because it allows government to prohibit data center construction and development.

[01:39:48 - 01:40:23] Speaker: Unknown
Is that say that one again, it's going to allow local government select your township supervisors, your lock your your closest level of government to you to prohibit data center construction and development. So right now in Pennsylvania, you have to provide a, for every industry. You have to provide a use while I'm sorry, but the use the the use of a I data hyperscale data center in Sugarloaf township or Quebec Township isn't like it doesn't fit in.

[01:40:23 - 01:40:41] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah, it's not like it's like. It's like it was like. It's like putting a giant, like a giant coal power plant. It's like, I don't know if you guys will go for that. And nor should you have to. Yeah, it's in it. Well, I think it doesn't. It gives local contractors more power. But isn't that the, the, the idea of a Commonwealth is it's local government.

[01:40:41 - 01:41:06] Speaker: Unknown
It is where Pennsylvania is one of two commonwealths in the United States for for you know what the other three are Kentucky, Massachusetts and Virginia. So we're supposed to have local control that supersedes, they state. Yeah. But it doesn't seem like that's happening. Not with this. Okay, you go now with this, and then, ensuring that the water resources aren't, are not utilized to the detriment of the public.

[01:41:06 - 01:41:24] Speaker: Unknown
And I think that's just common sense. But, you know, you got to put this stuff into law before. That's why they put on Elmer's glue. Don't eat because it makes much sense. But but we have to remind people not to do that. So that's that's just a summary. And and by the way like this is this is just the beginning.

[01:41:24 - 01:41:44] Speaker: Unknown
I have meetings coming up with some other legislators that are dealing with the same situation I am. And we're going to package this all together and get it out, hopefully here within the next 6 to 8 weeks. So you're going to you're going to write legislation that hopefully that that will pass. And I look man I love you know I do I don't I don't trust any of these people to pass any of that shit.

[01:41:44 - 01:42:03] Speaker: Unknown
Well, listen, even, this is a bipartisan issue across the Commonwealth, I hope so. I'm telling you that there are people that are, they're going to be held accountable at the ballot box. They don't protect. And you're not trying to stop these. You're just trying to be like, don't do them stupid and don't force them down people's throats.

[01:42:03 - 01:42:24] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah, I'll tell you the the midterms are going to be quite a wake up call for a lot of these politicians. I have no idea which way the midterms. There's going to be a lot of flips of seats, I can tell you that much. Can we do questions that were asked by the public? Yeah. And if it's if it's cool with you guys, if you don't like, if you don't know the answers, you don't know the answers.

[01:42:24 - 01:42:43] Speaker: Unknown
And that's okay, because apparently it's okay for the data centers to not know answers. Well. And I said this earlier today on a break with Rob O'Donnell. I think he asked us a question or something. They said, Rob, you know, like we, we, we know less than what we know because of the level of secrecy and every you gotta go find it out yourself.

[01:42:43 - 01:43:14] Speaker: Unknown
Everything. Yeah. We have to find everything out. And then and then once you go and search and look for stuff, you got to disseminate. Well, what's real? Yeah, yeah. What's factual and what's what's conjecture and what's. Okay. So this has to do for look, in my travels, I have realized that a lot of the voting public has kind of like the, the philosophy of, you know, like we were talking about earlier where the lady had like, she looked like a robot, right?

[01:43:14 - 01:43:33] Speaker: Unknown
And they think they realized that there's like sometimes they're just screwed and they're screaming into their pillow. But a lot of the times they just want somebody to listen to them. You know, if they have a grievance or something. I think that's what these questions are. So some of them might have to do with up here in this area as opposed to like Sugarloaf and down by you.

[01:43:33 - 01:43:57] Speaker: Unknown
This one's from a guy named John Wharton. Some proposed data centers are planning to use Lake Scranton as their water supply for cooling. Now, an article just came out where they said they're going to take, like, 1.5 million gallons or something from our primary water source. And so Lake Scranton is the drinking, cooking and, bathing water for I just want to get the number right.

[01:43:57 - 01:44:21] Speaker: Unknown
And is that 1.5 million gallons per day? I don't know, it serves 134,570 people. Now, you know how we feel. You don't know. Yeah, right. Lake Scranton was created to be used as drinking water for Scranton metro area. What can the state due to ensure our drinking water is not used for cooling operations at data centers?

[01:44:21 - 01:44:48] Speaker: Unknown
Don't read the last part that again. What can the state do to ensure our drinking water is not used for cooling operations at data centers? Currently? Right now, there's nothing in place. What we can do is pass legislation to protect the people like it was meant to, like it was meant to be. Unfortunately, right now they they have access to our natural water sources.

[01:44:48 - 01:45:12] Speaker: Unknown
And obviously with the Susquehanna, recent article that came out where they're going to return the, the, the water back to the Susquehanna River. The I said on on O'Donnell earlier, I was like, if you or I ever tried that, we, you know, we'd be behind a jail cell right now. You know what I mean? Well, you and I had the conversation about, like, the rain tax.

[01:45:12 - 01:45:29] Speaker: Unknown
Remember that one day with that guy. And we both, we both had the eureka of oysters. Yes. Did you ever hear about this. So they're trying their. No. You told me about the oysters. Yeah. But then he confirmed it. Yeah. Yeah I'm like get out of here. Yeah. So like in the Chesapeake Bay. So all the tributaries go down to there.

[01:45:29 - 01:45:51] Speaker: Unknown
And they were so they were saying that, like, upstream was poisoning the Chesapeake Bay. Right. And the problem. So like we were talking before, it's like ten years down the road, we really don't know what's going to happen. Right? So they thought that like upstream us, everybody. So they taxed everybody with this thing called the rain tax all the way down the river.

[01:45:51 - 01:46:13] Speaker: Unknown
But the truth of the matter is, is they were overfishing the oysters because oysters is is the water's natural filter for toxins and bacteria and all this crazy shit. Oh, wow. So once they stopped overfishing it all, the beauty in life came back to the Potomac. But they never stopped the rain tax, which is interesting. So. Okay. This is from Kathleen.

[01:46:13 - 01:46:40] Speaker: Unknown
A lot of these people, I don't know, Kathleen Hogan Madsen, who pays for additional infrastructure that provides access to the power grid. Ratepayers, ratepayers. What guarantee is there that residents utilities bills will not increase? Zero I like John, what are the limits on water consumption? Size of structures, distance from neighborhoods. Well, so one question at a time. What what are the limits on water consumption?

[01:46:40 - 01:47:06] Speaker: Unknown
As I know right now, there are none. What are the limits on size of the structures? That's zoning. What is what is the limits on distance from neighborhoods, zoning, your local zoning. So your local township or your local municipality may have a zoning officer or your county some, some some townships or municipalities don't have their own zoning. So they would fall underneath the county zoning.

[01:47:06 - 01:47:28] Speaker: Unknown
Okay. So let me tell you, most zoning is they're trying to put these things within 200ft of a residential property line, and they're trying to put them 100ft from your grandkids. Well, that's that's the power line, right? So they're trying to they're trying to put the structures with structures within 200ft. Yeah. Who is responsible for the cleanup and remediation when the center closes.

[01:47:29 - 01:47:52] Speaker: Unknown
So if if you have a bond, like if you make the company purchase a bond prior to development, that bond will cover the, you know, let's just say a comet hits and they disappear on a Monday. The bond will cover the remediation of it if they pay for it. Well, here's the thing, though. You have to have that in your ordinance.

[01:47:52 - 01:48:16] Speaker: Unknown
A bond you remediation bond, you have like okay, so if you're ordinance or if we're talking about data centers here, your ordinance specifically. Yeah. Yeah. So your ordinance has to have in there. It has to require the bond. There's other there's other methods of, of of doing that too. But a bond is one of them. Or else you could end up with a big empty building.

[01:48:16 - 01:48:42] Speaker: Unknown
This one's my favorite. How many permanent jobs will be created? Well, we touched I mean, you guys touched on it, like, maybe, maybe what, 20% for building 15 on a low end, 30 on a high end? Will nuclear power be allowed or encouraged? Yes. The details of that, obviously we don't know. We do know. I mean, we know it'll be there, but we don't know what like because that's another issue.

[01:48:42 - 01:49:09] Speaker: Unknown
It's like, oh, we're going to build a nuclear power plant. Well, here's the thing too. That should again, now they've developed nuclear power. I mean, I guess they use it on a submarine. It's just like that. Yeah. It's specific for the data center. So it wouldn't be energy energizing. Anything else? It could be built on site, and then it would energize the needs of that particular data center.

[01:49:09 - 01:49:37] Speaker: Unknown
No need for transmission lines, no, no cost, no socialized cost to the ratepayers. And, you know, it's actually a good thing. And it really is. Will residents wells run dry if they tack the ground, if they tap the groundwater, there's a strong possibility of that. There's there's history that shows that to be true. Yes. During a drought, you know, during that you have a drought.

[01:49:37 - 01:50:02] Speaker: Unknown
I mean, they just went through in Texas. If you didn't read the article in Texas where they asked the community to start bathing, like once a week instead of once a day because the data centers need there. But that's an interesting point, though. I just want to touch on that. That's one of those circumstances where you live across the street from a data center, your wall runs dry or your water's a trickle.

[01:50:02 - 01:50:19] Speaker: Unknown
There's nothing you could do about it. And here's why they're going to deny it. You're going to you're going to go to you're going to say, it's not us. They're going to say, what did you got? Well, water in us. We're not causing that problem. Something happened under the ground were stored under Arkansas, and you can't fight them.

[01:50:19 - 01:50:39] Speaker: Unknown
You don't have the money to fight them. Well, we have rolling blackouts because of stress on local power grid. I. I can foresee that. Yes. Will water pressure to homes be lessened? You just you just hit hit upon that? We just went over the environmental impacts. Well, what will the impacts this is? I don't think we go over this.

[01:50:39 - 01:51:06] Speaker: Unknown
What will the impact on wildlife fishing and tourism be? Well, when when you're wiping out thousands of acres for for data centers? Yeah. You're displacing wildlife. What will the constant noise do to our health? Did you order when you went down there? Did that surprise you? Just the sound of them without the generators running? Yeah. So, you know, it's not a sound.

[01:51:06 - 01:51:25] Speaker: Unknown
I'll be truthful with this. It's not a sound. Like you're like, oh, my gosh, my ears. Right. It's just this. It's like a nuisance, this nuisance. Humming yeah. Right. And after a while that's going to wear you down, particularly if you're hearing it in your house. Yeah. And let's say you had a bad day or something like that.

[01:51:25 - 01:51:45] Speaker: Unknown
Like this is psyop shit. Like the CIA does this stuff to make people go crazy. They'll just play like, yeah, like ask any military guy who's in Iraq or Afghanistan. They're like, yeah, we did that shit. It's a tactic. Yeah. What is the bottom line? Minimum of economic impact of each Senator over a ten year span?

[01:51:45 - 01:51:52] Speaker: Unknown
In other words, like the is it is in the long run, is it worth it?

[01:51:52 - 01:52:08] Speaker: Unknown
High financially or other? I think it comes down to location again. Right. It's going to be worth it in some areas. It's not going to be worth it in others if you're just talking financial impact.

[01:52:08 - 01:52:35] Speaker: Unknown
Listen down in down in Ashburn, the it was like a $100 million a year in revenue. Now it's up to $900 million in revenue in Loudoun County. Because of these data centers. It sounds fantastic, right. You know, but when they're destroying everybody's backyards and everything. So I. You bet nobody down there is like, oh my, my, my power bill went down my water bill went down.

[01:52:35 - 01:52:56] Speaker: Unknown
No, no, my property went down. Taxes. Yeah. I'm going to move on to care. Frances, can you please identify all the areas in Napa where their proposed data centers and what names are. You can go to PA data center proposals.com. And you could find that Cara. Ed Brian, where would the long term jobs be created?

[01:52:57 - 01:53:17] Speaker: Unknown
The there's no answer to that. They're they're not they're not created. Okay. This is a little I or this is a little tinfoil hat. I don't know if this person's real, but her name is Olga. True. I've heard. So forget all the data. Forget all this stuff. There's a there's an economic component to it and a land component to it, right?

[01:53:18 - 01:53:39] Speaker: Unknown
Which we talked about. This is her question, her statement. So they're using financial engineering, partnering with private equity firms that build the data centers and lease them back to tech companies, who then repay the cost through rent, which then can be bundled like bond like securities sold to investors, thereby turning AI infrastructure into a real estate and shadow banking play.

[01:53:39 - 01:54:06] Speaker: Unknown
Rather than traditional corporate debt. Doesn't this structure sound very familiar? The economic structure of it? I don't know what she means. I understand it's it's basically it's a shell game is what she's talking about. It's just like the money's here, and then it gets. Yeah, just keeps moves around and then you invest it. And then most wealth is from, assets, things that you have.

[01:54:06 - 01:54:30] Speaker: Unknown
It's like when you, when you, when you, when you buy the million dollar building for ten grand down, you now have an asset worth a million. That's kind of here's the beauty of this for, for meta Amazon all the end users just FYI I think it was this morning it was announced that Dave. And this is nothing against Dave McCormick but his wife McCormick's wife is now the president of meta.

[01:54:30 - 01:54:39] Speaker: Unknown
Okay okay. That's okay. Enough said. Okay to say any more. But so here's the beauty of it.

[01:54:39 - 01:55:06] Speaker: Unknown
These things are all investor driven. This is investor money right. If these things prove not to be profitable in certain if say the market gets saturated with data centers, they prove not to be more, profitable. The end user walks away. It's all investor money that's going to be lost. It's all the investors that will suffer from that.

[01:55:06 - 01:55:24] Speaker: Unknown
And then what happens when they all just dump it at one point? Then it's then it all collapses, right? Collapses. That's the that's the burst of the bubble. Okay. And it seems like we've been through these bubbles before. So what sort what what's past is is future so we can pay attention to them. This is from Tara Houlihan.

[01:55:24 - 01:55:27] Speaker: Unknown
I think you know her right?

[01:55:27 - 01:55:48] Speaker: Unknown
Can you. I think you just did. But can you please just tell us more about your bill that you're working on that will help protect local communities from the drawbacks of data centers? I think you just went through that. Yeah, I Tara, besides electric bill skyrocketing and droughts, what are some of the other drawbacks communities with data centers have seen?

[01:55:48 - 01:56:07] Speaker: Unknown
And you might know more about this just because you've been researching it. But there's there's areas that just it I mean there's many I mean I you know, it's going back to the question that you asked a couple questions ago about and what was it, I don't know, worth their oh, the value, the value of the community.

[01:56:07 - 01:56:26] Speaker: Unknown
What what was the question? What is the bottom line economic impact of each data center over a ten year span? That one. No. Can you, private equity firms, that one? Something about worth like. Is it worth is it at the end of the day, is it worth having data? So I think that was just I think I just asked, are you at the tail end of a thing.

[01:56:26 - 01:56:44] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. So it kind of rolls into that. Like what's your definition of worth. Right. So when you take these small rural communities, those people live there because that's they, they don't want to be by.

[01:56:44 - 01:57:11] Speaker: Unknown
The business world, the super Walmart. Right. Yeah. They want to be they want to wake up in the morning, go out in their yard and see deer CFR turkeys. Yeah. Whatever the case may be, that's the life they want to live. So if your definition of worth is quality of life, there's zero worth having a data center. If your definition of worth is, $1 billion investment into your community and tax money.

[01:57:12 - 01:57:32] Speaker: Unknown
Okay, then there's worse. But so it just depends on your definition of worth it. And and most of these investors do not live where they're putting power lines or data centers. I could tell you this. There's definitely not one of these people have a 500 K V line running through their property, or live within 200ft of a data center.

[01:57:32 - 01:57:48] Speaker: Unknown
I promise you that. Is there anything that we forgot to talk about? I mean, we tried it, I tried it, we could talk about this for eight hours, but I wanted to. I wanted to kind of breeze through this so you guys can have a safe ride home. Yeah. No, I, I think, this is this has to happen.

[01:57:48 - 01:58:05] Speaker: Unknown
We need we need more people in Harrisburg coming here and talking to you about this because, you know, I feel like I'm on an island down there. You're usually the guy on the island. I am, yeah. And then like, five years later, it's like, oh, Jamie was right. Like, well, that's when, you know you're doing the right thing most totally.

[01:58:05 - 01:58:31] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. And I think, I think a lot of them may not be getting inundated yet like I am. Yeah, but it's common. And this is the conversations that I try to have down in Harrisburg. You know, I know you might not be dealing with this right now, but it's coming. And if we don't put some guardrails on this, it could be a runaway train real fast.

[01:58:31 - 01:58:53] Speaker: Unknown
So the only thing right now, slowing down any of the projects that are in our area is the people that stood up. And I'm proud of the people that stood up in the community and stood their ground and said, you know what? Not here. So it's going to take a while for this to all, you know, filter out, we'll see what happens.

[01:58:53 - 01:59:15] Speaker: Unknown
But I'll tell you, there's no way we're backing down. So what do you recommend? What each we recommend just regular citizens and communities where these are common. What, like what are like is there like a is there like a, a guide that they can follow to. Yeah. To, to protect themselves or to make it done right. That's a great question.

[01:59:16 - 01:59:48] Speaker: Unknown
So first first and foremost. And they cannot wait on their elected supervisors of their township or whatever to do this. They have to be active. They have to go and ask, do we have us an ordinance in regard to data centers? If they don't, they need to get that done now because there'll be no warning. They come out of the darkness and they hit you with a curative amendment, and then your battle is three times as hard.

[01:59:48 - 02:00:10] Speaker: Unknown
You have an ordinance in place. You stand a much better chance. Right? So that's the first thing. Second thing is you have to get the community involved. You have to get a core group of people. You have to start a movement. You gotta use social media because that's the best way to reach people. You get that movement going.

[02:00:10 - 02:00:34] Speaker: Unknown
You're going to find that your community has a nice group of environmentally conscious people and who believe in doing the right thing, and then you're going to start fighting and and honestly, like Jamie, you touched on it before. It becomes your life. It does. And it's, it's not it's not what you wanted. It's not. You know, it's uncomfortable at times, particularly at this, at this stage of my life.

[02:00:35 - 02:01:02] Speaker: Unknown
You know, I just kind of semi-retired. Just wanted to chill. Right. But now for the past now, over a year, what? A year and three months, every single day of my life is dealing with this crap. And it sucks, but it is what it is. And I'll fight it to the end. You know, I I'll tell you every morning I'm up either between 5 or 6 a.m. and our group, we have multiple groups.

[02:01:02 - 02:01:30] Speaker: Unknown
Our groups are chatting already and sending stuff that they found online. You know, regarding data centers and, you know, decisions that were made in politics regarding data centers, this, that and the other thing. So I'm telling you, everybody from our community that's involved in this heavily, it's it's we go to sleep thinking about it, we wake up, it's the first thought on our mind and we think about it all day long.

[02:01:30 - 02:01:54] Speaker: Unknown
It's not a great way to live, but it's where we're at right now, and we're doing it. It's like living under siege. It is like, how do they not realize that that's not okay to do to like, how does how does I don't expect you to answer this, but how does the state elected officials think that it's okay that their citizens have to go through this like it's not even in yet, and it's almost like you're under siege.

[02:01:54 - 02:02:24] Speaker: Unknown
It's like at any moment, like everything changes and we don't like, we never wanted this or nobody's asking for it. Well, I would say, right now there's about five areas that I know of down there from the from the constituents that I heard from the, colleagues that I talked to. There's about five areas that are getting they're getting heavy, like push back, push pressure, to allow these data centers and like pressure to have to put them in or to not put them in.

[02:02:24 - 02:03:07] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. Pressure from developers that are coming in and trying to support them in their areas. And, I happen to end up being their first phone call every time, even though they're on the opposite side. Sometimes they're on the opposite side of the aisle. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So it's it's I, I think this is going to be the issue that, it's so important to get it right because you only have one chance to get it right, because like once an ordinance is written for Johns Township or my township or anybody's township, it's so important to get it right, because these developers will find any loophole whatsoever that they can to get around, you

[02:03:07 - 02:03:38] Speaker: Unknown
know, and I reached out to Jimmy because honestly, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, Jimmy, he's one of three across the state and I'm talking state Senate and state rep and state rep. He's one of 3 or 4 that are publicly coming out for the people and fighting against the placement of these data centers. Am I correct in that you are, you know, out of all of them, how many of them have been to Ashburn?

[02:03:38 - 02:04:01] Speaker: Unknown
Actually. Oh, you mean out of the 3 or 4 that I think at out of all the state reps or state senators, how many have actually taken I mean, up here, it's a three hour drive. But in other places, I'm sure it's shorter. How many people have actually gone there to see it? I mean, I don't know that I know of about ten out of enough, and the full membership of the legislature is 203 ten.

[02:04:01 - 02:04:28] Speaker: Unknown
But that's only with that I know about like, not everybody has to me, not everybody says, hey, I'm going down to, you know, are you the only one that did anything like a video about it? I mean, other than people just holding up their phones and saying, like, this is messed up. Yeah. I believe so. I believe so, but I think, I think that video brought awareness because what did we have like 55,000 views before we had to edit it?

[02:04:28 - 02:04:45] Speaker: Unknown
Edit it? There was I don't remember the actual I remember talking to you go in like we're going to lose the final count. It's going to be terrible. And I commented on someone's post the other day and they had a specific question, and I said, because they killed our momentum, the rocket that was taken off the pad, they killed it.

[02:04:45 - 02:04:56] Speaker: Unknown
I know, I said to them, if if your they were complaining that their state rep.

[02:04:56 - 02:05:08] Speaker: Unknown
State representatives weren't responding. Right. And so I made a comment to their post and I said, look.

[02:05:08 - 02:05:29] Speaker: Unknown
If you're elected officials are not coming out publicly. Like if they're only giving you lip service behind the curtain, they're all in on data centers. They're not with, you know, that right out of their silence tells you don't waste your time because they're going to come. They're going to talk to you. They're going to make you feel good.

[02:05:29 - 02:05:49] Speaker: Unknown
They're going to make you feel like they're on your side. But when they walk out the door, that's the last thing they do right? So unless they publicly come out and support you, just move on because you're just wasting your time until you find someone that is going to help you, you know?

[02:05:49 - 02:06:11] Speaker: Unknown
Are you guys are there are there are people already gearing up to primary or try to defeat, reps or senators who are who seem to be quiet on this or nobody knows. I haven't heard that yet. I haven't heard anything. Typically, over the next 2 to 3 weeks, we're going to start to hear who's going to run for this running and why they're running.

[02:06:11 - 02:06:31] Speaker: Unknown
And I think, I think not only primaries, but generals are going to be decided over this issue this year. You think this is such an important issue that it isn't really 100%. And it's only going to continue to get more in the limelight as time goes on. I think this is going to move faster than most other things.

[02:06:31 - 02:06:53] Speaker: Unknown
This data center thing. But I said to John, when we met and I told him day one, I'm like, got a long road ahead of you because I remember, you know, you remember all those board meetings I was going to. Oh, yeah, for two years. Almost had to shut down couth. And, this reminds me of that same.

[02:06:53 - 02:07:20] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. Fight. We had $1 billion company trying to ram this this mental health yeah program into our schools, and we defeated them. But I told them from day one, I'm like, we can we can win. We just have to. We have we just can't let up. Yeah. We just have to be every single day. And I mean, there is very few nights of the week that we're not at a meeting, either me or him or we're there together.

[02:07:20 - 02:07:48] Speaker: Unknown
Different townships, different counties. You know, I call rep watch. I'm like, hey, I'm going to be coming in the Hazle Township meeting tonight. Are you okay with that? He's like, no, absolutely. You know, it's just a courtesy thing to to let your other state rep know that you're coming into their district. And he's like, nope, no problem. So this is this is a fight that I feel like, we can win, I really do.

[02:07:48 - 02:08:08] Speaker: Unknown
I feel like we can win this because whoever that judges, it's making the call in the court is going to see all the evidence in all the data. And I'm telling you, no one's more prepared with evidence and data than Sugarloaf Township. And it's. Which is like you'd never you'd never think like, five years ago. You'd never think that would be the response.

[02:08:08 - 02:08:31] Speaker: Unknown
No one has more data in evidence in Sugarloaf. But but the group that John formed with, with a group of people, that's, that's, Hold on. Let me sit. Let me see this. Right. Son of a bitch. You should alliance to stop the line. The the alliance, the alliance to stop the line. Yeah. Okay. You should follow them on Facebook if this is an interesting topic to you.

[02:08:31 - 02:09:03] Speaker: Unknown
Keep the website and everything. Oh, yeah. I mean, I wouldn't expect anything less major league website. Okay. Yeah. An hour. An hour team is ferocious. I mean, they work, I mean, these I met some of them. They're good people. They're good people. And and they work and they are passionate and, you know. You know, that's the thing is, like, we're good human beings, and we feel like we're being like, you know, you got a boot on your neck.

[02:09:03 - 02:09:23] Speaker: Unknown
Yep. And when that happens, it tends to make it a change. It changes a person, right. And you're going to fight back. And that's just the way it is. Final final question for both of you. I mean, this shit takes a toll. It does. How do you. Because other other, other, other people are going to go through this.

[02:09:23 - 02:09:46] Speaker: Unknown
Oh, so can you kind of enlighten them to what you got to do and what to expect? Like emotionally and personally, I could tell you I could tell you how how how the how I look at it. Right. Well, first of all, you're, you're going to have it's like a roller coaster. You're going to have really good days where you're where you're inspired and happy.

[02:09:47 - 02:10:08] Speaker: Unknown
And then the next day might be the very, very opposite end of that spectrum. Right? My thing is, I could easily walk away from this and just let whatever happened happen, right? Say to myself, you know, I'm 63. I just want to live out my life. You're 63. I'm 63. I'll believe at all. I hope you look way younger than that.

[02:10:08 - 02:10:29] Speaker: Unknown
Know everybody says, look how black your hair you're in. You look how black. You guys both have the same hair. Thank you. You're it. But I don't believe that at all. Sorry. Anyway, but, you know, and I tell my wife this because. Because my wife's a more reserved person. Doesn't want to rock the boat. Very meek.

[02:10:29 - 02:10:38] Speaker: Unknown
Yeah. And I tell her, like, I am not going to sit back and.

[02:10:38 - 02:11:13] Speaker: Unknown
Let something happen that I think is completely wrong. I am just not going to do it. I can't do it. I can't allow myself to do it. And the, the, our core group of our people in this alliance are, are made of the same cloth. Like they don't want any entity, whether it's government entity or big business or whatever it is utility coming in and and like disrupting and destroying our lives.

[02:11:13 - 02:11:33] Speaker: Unknown
And that's how we feel. That's what's happening right now. And regardless of how hard it is, we're seeing it out. And that's if you stop them. Do you think it's worth it? Absolutely. Absolutely, yes. And then when you look back on it, you're like, man, this fight was totally unnecessary for them to do, you know? And that's how I'm looking.

[02:11:33 - 02:11:54] Speaker: Unknown
You know, it's like you didn't have to screw these people like that. No matter how this thing turns out. And this this is why I say because, you know, a lot of people say, oh, you're fighting people. You know, you can't win that blah, blah, blah. Listen, at the end of the day, I never want to look back in my life and say, I wish I would have.

[02:11:54 - 02:12:19] Speaker: Unknown
Right? Yeah. No regrets man. You know what I mean? Yeah. So and that's where this is at, you know, I and I tell them, look, one thing's a guarantee you're going to lose if you don't fight, right. That's guaranteed. At least if you fight, you have a chance. And that's. That would be my encouragement. As hard as it is, dig down, find find the courage and get out there and fight.

[02:12:19 - 02:12:55] Speaker: Unknown
And do not be afraid to hold your elected officials accountable. Don't be afraid to get up at the podium and tell them you're just like it is. Yeah, just like it is. That would be my my my suggestion. Jamie's never shied away from doing that. He hasn't. My, my advice would be to if this is coming to your community, immediately organize a group of people and know and just know that if 100 people show up, there's probably 8 to 10 that are going to get heavily involved.

[02:12:55 - 02:13:13] Speaker: Unknown
That doesn't mean the other 90 people don't care. It's that maybe they don't have the time. You never know what's going on in someone's life, but they will be there. They will show up at meetings and stand behind you and say, hey, they'll clap when you're done speaking. Let the township supervisors know. Or with him. Yeah, yeah.

[02:13:13 - 02:13:33] Speaker: Unknown
And and it's that. It's that core group of people. That's all it takes. That that core group of people that work tirelessly, that get up at five in the morning and in in the last text before they go to bed at midnight, they're texting the group and saying goodnight. You know, it doesn't take a thousand people to fight this.

[02:13:33 - 02:14:04] Speaker: Unknown
You just need a solid nucleus and what what gets you through this is having people standing with you. Yes. Each other? Yes. Each other. It is. And so a support system support. No ego, no right. Keep your eye on maintain the mission. This is your focus. We just need to stop these things or do them right. Correct. But you got you have to have people.

[02:14:04 - 02:14:28] Speaker: Unknown
You have to have leaders and you have to have workers, chiefs and Indians, chiefs and Indians. You have to have that. And, this is not for the meek. Like if you're if you're meek, you need to be in the background, you know, Jamie Walsh, state rep for the 1/17 John Zola, residents of Sugar Loaf. Yeah.

[02:14:28 - 02:14:47] Speaker: Unknown
And, go check them out at the Alliance to Stop the line. Anything else? Where else on social can they find you guys besides just looking up your names while you're big on social chat? That's your Facebook groups, Twitter, all that shit? No. You don't have a Facebook page for alliances up the line. I have a line to stop the line.

[02:14:47 - 02:15:08] Speaker: Unknown
Yes. That's it. Do you guys have a YouTube channel? No. Might not be a bad idea to even just cell phone footage. Just be out there and be like, here's here's the lines, here's this, here's that, here's this property, here's this, here's that. It's cheap and easy. And you'll get you'll get people to get engaged, okay. It's it's easy to do if you guys probably already have enough footage on your phones to do it anyways.

[02:15:08 - 02:15:26] Speaker: Unknown
However, actually, his son in law runs the, the you know, the page, the Facebook page and the website and all that. That's what he does for a living. He he may have a YouTube channel he may not know about. Yeah. Like I said, I am 63, so he's kind of like, you look like Dorian Gray. I don't know what the hell is going on.

[02:15:27 - 02:15:41] Speaker: Unknown
Guys, thank you for fighting the fight. And I'm going to get this up probably tonight or tomorrow morning and, hopefully it'll it'll help out a little bit. Thanks for having us. Thank you for being here. Thanks for being who you guys are. Because it's awesome. Real Americans hate it. You. Thanks, guys. Thank you for your time and.