Do data centers negatively impact home values? While research is just starting to explore this question, early studies suggest they "do not create a drag on value."
Summarizing the entire Great Oak subdivision's sales price by year doesn't really tell us anything. The community is half-moon shaped, running almost a mile long, with the data centers clustered toward one end. None of the 30 or so homes closest to the data centers has sold in the last three years.
The CRA claims on its website: "The principal mission of the Center for Regional Analysis (CRA) is to provide research and technical assistance to local government and businesses, primarily located in the Washington DC Metro region." Businesses? Which businesses? Paying for which studies? There is no disclosure of funding or conflicts of interest. The website of the Stephen S. Fuller Institute, under which the CRA operates, states: "The Institute is fully funded through January 2020 via private donations. More than 30 donors contributed to funding the Institute, with George Mason University providing office space and overhead costs." Who are these donors?
Living near a data center can have effects on home values, potentially causing a decline due to visual blight and noise.
The impact depends on the data center's proximity to the neighborhood and the surrounding community's existing infrastructure.
Visual Blight:
The industrial infrastructure of a data center can be an eyesore, potentially marring views and negatively affecting nearby residential aesthetics.
Noise Pollution:
Data centers produce noise from cooling systems and generators, which can be a significant nuisance.
Environmental Concerns:
Residents have concerns about the impact on local ecosystems, supported by the Rappahannock River, albeit with Fredericksburg's dwindling tree canopy, due to non-sustainable development and building DATA CENTERS.
Local Conditions:
Areas already experiencing growth, with more land like Northern Virginia counties, can absorb new DATA CENTERS, but areas already at saturation points due to alarmingly less land to develop, reducing 'green space', like Fredericksburg, will see more challenges with out-of-scale tall buildings (FXBG's version of NYC skyscrapers), like the two hotels near the city's cemetery, with housing availability and costs.
Community Input:
Residents without knowledge of or input into DATA CENTER approvals, and the impact of Dominion's transmission lines, like the Great Oaks, The Preserves, and Hills of Snowden neighborhoods, may find their property values plummeting without warning.
The 1500 Gateway Project (Hylton tract) DATA CENTER applicant was appealed by Charlie Payne, the #1 Hirschler Law attorney for the region's DATA CENTERS.
This project is in Fredericksburg's Great Oaks neighborhood on Governor's Way. Where Ward 3 Councilor-appointee Susanna Finn lives and once was HOA President.
As per contacting these residents at their doors, they and adjoining business owners are becoming increasingly concerned that 4 DATA CENTERS may go in and harm their neighborhood and close businesses.
Great Oaks is the same name as the Prince William Great Oaks neighborhood that won their lawsuit against the county for not giving proper public notice on DATA CENTERS.
It's the Great Oaks neighborhood next to the Good Car Wash on Plank Rd.
Council's assurances about no more DATA CENTERS in FXBG. Nope, not true.
DATA CENTERS are the Fredericksburg Poltergeist: 'They're back'.
This 1500 Gateway project applicant wanted a 90-day extension to 12-9-25 instead of presenting their DATA CENTER appeal at this past Tuesday's 9-9-2025 Council Meeting.
The applicants and Council realized that this appeal would be heard in a contentious LOCAL election year.
Residents and Chris LaMonte, owner of the Good Car Wash, came out to the public comment mic/wrote letters to call them out that we realized they were trying to get this appeal passed in the supposed lame-duck period after the 11-4-25 Election Day.
The period of Nov 5 - Dec 31, 2025. with new Councilors coming in on 1-1-2026.
These involved citizens shut down the 12-9-25 Charlie Payne/Hirschler Law appeal. Charlie Payne/Hirschler Law working with the DATA CENTER developer-applicant decided to redo the application. Submit again in 2026.
In the past week, residents looked up political donations to local Council candidates.
Charlie Payne, the #1 attorney for the region's DATA CENTERS gave donations to the following LOCAL campaigns. Look it up on the Virginia Public Access Project/VPAP:
Ward 1 (vote at Hugh Mercer ES): MATT ROWE $500.;
Ward 2 (vote at Dorothy Hart CC): JOY CRUMP (hosted a House Party for her campaign);
Ward 3 (vote at Gladys West ES, new name, same building) SUSANNA FINN $1000.
Just like today's article has a DATA CENTER 'bias' because DC developer Stack Infrastructure is funding the column, BTW- no mention of who funded the George Mason University studies, so goes it with these compromised Council candidates in being in cahoots with the DATA CENTER industry.
These implicated candidates are also part of the problem with dividing our city in the LOCAL election.
Two of them, plus Ward 4 Chuck Frye, wholeheartedly accepted the Fredericksburg Democratic Committee's controversial FDC ballot endorsement (7-9-25).
[Susanna Finn, federal HATCH Act employee, could not accept the Dem political party endorsement].
That behavior contrasts with the promises made by certain previous Councilors, including now Mayor Kerry Devine, documented on Regional Web TV, that they would NOT allow political party influence on the LOCAL elections.
That was when the 2021 General Assembly voted in Senate Bill 1157 to eliminate May elections in Virginia's cities to move them all to one Nov election.
Doesn't matter that times have changed and look at what's happening at state and national politics. Keep that divisiveness out of our LOCAL elections. It's not about Dem values. It's about contacting a Councilor to get Public Works to fix the darn pothole on Virginia Avenue.
Suck it up. No political party endorsements at LOCAL level. That's it.
You care about our Rappahannock River? Remember the drought showing all the rocks because of low water?
The geese were confused about where they wanted to be.
The 6th Most Endangered River in the US, named shortly after this Council's 2-25-25 'aggressive timeline' TOD vote for the 8-12 DATA CENTERS going in at 'Celebrate Virginia' near Fred Nats?
Look up the research study (not funded by the DATA CENTER trillionaire industry) that shows DATA CENTERS locate near Endangered Rivers because the residents won't catch on that it's the region's DATA CENTERS sucking out the water from the river. They can just blame it on the 'endangered' status instead.
and VOTE for candidates who do NOT accept Charlie Payne DATA CENTER money for their campaigns.
Show up at tonight's non-partisan League of Women Voters forum 6:30 - 8:30 PM and call out these candidates for accepting a political party endorsement and DATA CENTER donations.
Just the title's question 'Do DATA CENTERS negatively impact home values?' caused me to question this article, 'Am I living in another alternate universe?
This is crazy. Is this some sort of Orwellian spin control?'
Of course, DATA CENTERS negatively impact home values!
Who wants to live near DATA CENTERS?
Even the bee and butterfly research studies on behavior (no birds involved, they're dinosaurs, not frail) being conducted near DATA CENTERS in NoVA haven't come back in yet to know if we're going to have mutations/behavioral adaptations occurring in future generations of humans.
Even More anxious, stressed, depressed humans? because they're living near DATA CENTERS?
Is it just my generation's questioning what we read and what action we need to take when we see a spin article like this?
When I ran the question by a few in the younger generation, the first response was 'It's got to be a joke. Don't read it.'
It's not a joke when it comes to DATA CENTERS.
The Prince William residents in the Great Oaks neighborhood have been through heck: the cracked foundation and numerous cracks in walls in their half-million-dollar 'life's investment' due to the DATA CENTER bulldozers.
The headaches of the constant noise.
dB level is one factor, but it's the CONSTANCY of the irritating noise that drives residents nuts and gives their children headaches, and not being able to sleep during the night.
The generators sound like a helicopter taking off in their backyard.
Some of us know because we went into the neighborhoods to ask the residents. Unlike the Councilors in their 2 X 2 meetups on the rooftop with the DATA CENTER marketing team so they couldn't hear as much noise from ground level.
You remember that fakeout being fed to environmental activists during community meetings organized, not by the city, but by the Sierra Club, FB INFORM Fredericksburg with speakers from the DATA CENTER industry, along with the Virginia Piedmont Environmental Council, and video?
'Hidden Cost of the Cloud: DATA CENTERS in Virginia (PEC, 2024):
The one where Mayor Kerry Devine said 'Trust us'. and there was a groan in the packed room?
At those meetings, we were told that the generators are only supposed to come on in an emergency. or just during a periodic check of their functioning status.
Horse-hooey. They're running A LOT more this summer because NoVA: The Data Center Capital of the WORLD is experiencing unprecedented heat.
I struggled to get through this article. Questioning the sources cited, who is funding them. This can't be. I'm missing something. Is this some bunk Letter to the Editor?
Three times I went back to re-read. and then 'Bingo!'.
The column is funded by STACK INFRASTRUCTURE!
May I suggest BOLD who's funding the column next time, put it right at the start of the article or asterisk as a footnote? That will let readers know right quick that there is going to be BIAS in it.
Stack is funding the column.
Stack is the DATA CENTER developer for the DATA CENTER Technology Overlay District/TOD of 8-12 DATA CENTERS going in near the Fred Nats.
You know. The 2-25-25 TOD vote, which was rushed, as per the city's pronounced 'aggressive' timeline, by this current 7-0 Nontransparent Council.
The DATA CENTER TOD that the Planning Commission said 'no' to because the DATA CENTER Performance Agreement Standards were NOT ready.
Neither were the conditions of the Water Services Agreement. The water usage was even redacted, as seen when concerned 22401 residents filed a FOIA Freedom of Info Act to get that info on the NonDisclosure Agreement. There was some info that we were entitled to, for free, without having to spend our own money to get it through a FOIA.
Like, who is the developer-applicant of the 8-12 DATA CENTERS in 'Celebrate Virginia'?
We were blown off by Councilors with 'that's proprietary info'.
Nah, absolutely not true. Prince William seasoned activists told us that.
That's just standard MO that the honchos with this trillion-dollar DATA CENTER industry tell gullible Councilors, local government officials to say to we, the ratepayers. To pull the wool over our eyes too.
Prince William activists told us: Don't buy it. Insist that the info be released.
It took significant research time for a cohort of University of Mary Washington students to be ready to present their study of DATA CENTERS coming to our region at the UMW Youth Climate Action Summit in Spring 2025.
They too had to file a costly FOIA to go through hundreds of city emails to find info on DATA CENTERS that would not be released to the public otherwise.
These persistent UMW students created a scatter plot graph of red dots to show the location of DATA CENTERS built/proposed, and coming here.
When the PowerPoint slide appeared, there was a gasp in the audience at the number of DATA CENTERS proposed to make the Fredericksburg region part of their 'DATA CENTER capital of the WORLD'.
We learned that the DATA CENTER developers had gorged their fill in Prince William, Fauquier, Loudoun counties due to savvy residents who have caught on to their MOs, formed coalitions and run them out with protests and a lawsuit.
The PW Great Oaks neighborhood later won their lawsuit that they were not given the proper public notice on DATA CENTERS coming their way.
At the end of the UMW student presentation at Climate Action on 2-22-25, they released the info, that the city would not provide: the name of the 'Celebrate VA' developer: Stack Infrastructure.
That DATA CENTER developer name gave us the weekend to research Stack Infrastructure. That Kevin Hughes is their employee. That he was appointed on July 1, 2023 to the Fredericksburg EDA when Mitzi Brown (Councilor Jon Gerlach's wife) was Chair of the Fredericksburg Economic Development Authority/EDA, when the EDA Bylaws allowed the EDA Chair to provide the name for the Council's appointment.
Since then, the EDA Bylaws have been changed to be in alignment with the city's other commissions and boards for the Chair's rightful duty: that the EDA Chair is to contact the Clerk of Council and state only that there is an EDA 'vacancy' and not the specific name for appointment.
Prince William activists told us that Kevin Hughes, along with other DATA CENTER developers, was removed from their DATA CENTER Citizens' Advisory Board because they developed a block of voting that shut out the citizens' voices.
These DATA CENTER admins stalemated any action that the citizens wanted to take to respond to the DATA CENTERS proliferating in Prince William Co. So they got them off their DATA CENTER Citizens' Advisory Board.
As an EDA member, Kevin Hughes was part of that questionable vote to send $200,000 to Dominion for a study of transmission lines. No 'conflict of interest' was brought up by EDA.
At first, the city vote for that $200,000 was going to come directly from the city but the city's attorney advised 'hands off' and the money was processed through the EDA.
When this EDA $200,000 expenditure was questioned at the DATA CENTER community meeting, sponsored by the Sierra Club, FB 'INFORM Fredericksburg' at the Howell library in Stafford, 'as fox guarding the henhouse' and 'why do we taxpayers have to fund a DATA CENTER Transmission line study, let Dominion do their own study at their expense?' we were told that Dominion is a monopoly. And we would not be given that choice.
Since that time, the EDA minutes have been written to fake-spin the reality that residents were told this money was for a Dominion transmission line study. nah, the money was never spent, it wasn't that issue at all.
Unbelievable. This type of spin is why residents no longer trust what's happening with this set of Councilors or certain appointees.
The fakeout by this Council continues. When we were told that they would not have any more DATA CENTERS in Fredericksburg, that 8-12 DATA CENTERS out near the Fred Nats, within 200 ft of seniors and children living in the condos and apts there, it was enough.
We just rolled our eyes and shook our heads. yeah, right. David v. Goliath. Goliath is going to come in and continue pilfering.
Unless we speak up.
DATA CENTER proliferation in Fredericksburg is like 'Poltergeist' (1982): the cultural phenomenon horror scene of little 5-year-old blond, Carol Anne Freeling, being woken up by the static on the family's bedroom TV screen, mesmerized by the strobe lights. turning to look at her family and saying simply in haunting truth: 'They're here'.
'Mesmerizing' similarly to Council's 'Poltergeist' fascination, that these DATA CENTERS are going to bring in revenue for the city;
nah, that's our money: the DATA CENTERS fees embedded/hidden within every Dominion power bill in the Commonwealth, with Councilors not acknowledging the truth that we ratepayers are unfairly being billed by the Dominion monopoly to fund them through Dominion's hidden fees.
Who is Stack Infrastructure?
Fair question: how much did they grant the Advanvce?
Summarizing the entire Great Oak subdivision's sales price by year doesn't really tell us anything. The community is half-moon shaped, running almost a mile long, with the data centers clustered toward one end. None of the 30 or so homes closest to the data centers has sold in the last three years.
The CRA claims on its website: "The principal mission of the Center for Regional Analysis (CRA) is to provide research and technical assistance to local government and businesses, primarily located in the Washington DC Metro region." Businesses? Which businesses? Paying for which studies? There is no disclosure of funding or conflicts of interest. The website of the Stephen S. Fuller Institute, under which the CRA operates, states: "The Institute is fully funded through January 2020 via private donations. More than 30 donors contributed to funding the Institute, with George Mason University providing office space and overhead costs." Who are these donors?
Living near a data center can have effects on home values, potentially causing a decline due to visual blight and noise.
The impact depends on the data center's proximity to the neighborhood and the surrounding community's existing infrastructure.
Visual Blight:
The industrial infrastructure of a data center can be an eyesore, potentially marring views and negatively affecting nearby residential aesthetics.
Noise Pollution:
Data centers produce noise from cooling systems and generators, which can be a significant nuisance.
Environmental Concerns:
Residents have concerns about the impact on local ecosystems, supported by the Rappahannock River, albeit with Fredericksburg's dwindling tree canopy, due to non-sustainable development and building DATA CENTERS.
Local Conditions:
Areas already experiencing growth, with more land like Northern Virginia counties, can absorb new DATA CENTERS, but areas already at saturation points due to alarmingly less land to develop, reducing 'green space', like Fredericksburg, will see more challenges with out-of-scale tall buildings (FXBG's version of NYC skyscrapers), like the two hotels near the city's cemetery, with housing availability and costs.
Community Input:
Residents without knowledge of or input into DATA CENTER approvals, and the impact of Dominion's transmission lines, like the Great Oaks, The Preserves, and Hills of Snowden neighborhoods, may find their property values plummeting without warning.
The 1500 Gateway Project (Hylton tract) DATA CENTER applicant was appealed by Charlie Payne, the #1 Hirschler Law attorney for the region's DATA CENTERS.
This project is in Fredericksburg's Great Oaks neighborhood on Governor's Way. Where Ward 3 Councilor-appointee Susanna Finn lives and once was HOA President.
As per contacting these residents at their doors, they and adjoining business owners are becoming increasingly concerned that 4 DATA CENTERS may go in and harm their neighborhood and close businesses.
Great Oaks is the same name as the Prince William Great Oaks neighborhood that won their lawsuit against the county for not giving proper public notice on DATA CENTERS.
It's the Great Oaks neighborhood next to the Good Car Wash on Plank Rd.
Council's assurances about no more DATA CENTERS in FXBG. Nope, not true.
DATA CENTERS are the Fredericksburg Poltergeist: 'They're back'.
This 1500 Gateway project applicant wanted a 90-day extension to 12-9-25 instead of presenting their DATA CENTER appeal at this past Tuesday's 9-9-2025 Council Meeting.
The applicants and Council realized that this appeal would be heard in a contentious LOCAL election year.
Residents and Chris LaMonte, owner of the Good Car Wash, came out to the public comment mic/wrote letters to call them out that we realized they were trying to get this appeal passed in the supposed lame-duck period after the 11-4-25 Election Day.
The period of Nov 5 - Dec 31, 2025. with new Councilors coming in on 1-1-2026.
These involved citizens shut down the 12-9-25 Charlie Payne/Hirschler Law appeal. Charlie Payne/Hirschler Law working with the DATA CENTER developer-applicant decided to redo the application. Submit again in 2026.
In the past week, residents looked up political donations to local Council candidates.
Charlie Payne, the #1 attorney for the region's DATA CENTERS gave donations to the following LOCAL campaigns. Look it up on the Virginia Public Access Project/VPAP:
Ward 1 (vote at Hugh Mercer ES): MATT ROWE $500.;
Ward 2 (vote at Dorothy Hart CC): JOY CRUMP (hosted a House Party for her campaign);
Ward 3 (vote at Gladys West ES, new name, same building) SUSANNA FINN $1000.
Just like today's article has a DATA CENTER 'bias' because DC developer Stack Infrastructure is funding the column, BTW- no mention of who funded the George Mason University studies, so goes it with these compromised Council candidates in being in cahoots with the DATA CENTER industry.
These implicated candidates are also part of the problem with dividing our city in the LOCAL election.
Two of them, plus Ward 4 Chuck Frye, wholeheartedly accepted the Fredericksburg Democratic Committee's controversial FDC ballot endorsement (7-9-25).
[Susanna Finn, federal HATCH Act employee, could not accept the Dem political party endorsement].
That behavior contrasts with the promises made by certain previous Councilors, including now Mayor Kerry Devine, documented on Regional Web TV, that they would NOT allow political party influence on the LOCAL elections.
That was when the 2021 General Assembly voted in Senate Bill 1157 to eliminate May elections in Virginia's cities to move them all to one Nov election.
Doesn't matter that times have changed and look at what's happening at state and national politics. Keep that divisiveness out of our LOCAL elections. It's not about Dem values. It's about contacting a Councilor to get Public Works to fix the darn pothole on Virginia Avenue.
Suck it up. No political party endorsements at LOCAL level. That's it.
You care about our Rappahannock River? Remember the drought showing all the rocks because of low water?
The geese were confused about where they wanted to be.
The 6th Most Endangered River in the US, named shortly after this Council's 2-25-25 'aggressive timeline' TOD vote for the 8-12 DATA CENTERS going in at 'Celebrate Virginia' near Fred Nats?
Look up the research study (not funded by the DATA CENTER trillionaire industry) that shows DATA CENTERS locate near Endangered Rivers because the residents won't catch on that it's the region's DATA CENTERS sucking out the water from the river. They can just blame it on the 'endangered' status instead.
and VOTE for candidates who do NOT accept Charlie Payne DATA CENTER money for their campaigns.
Show up at tonight's non-partisan League of Women Voters forum 6:30 - 8:30 PM and call out these candidates for accepting a political party endorsement and DATA CENTER donations.
Just the title's question 'Do DATA CENTERS negatively impact home values?' caused me to question this article, 'Am I living in another alternate universe?
This is crazy. Is this some sort of Orwellian spin control?'
Of course, DATA CENTERS negatively impact home values!
Who wants to live near DATA CENTERS?
Even the bee and butterfly research studies on behavior (no birds involved, they're dinosaurs, not frail) being conducted near DATA CENTERS in NoVA haven't come back in yet to know if we're going to have mutations/behavioral adaptations occurring in future generations of humans.
Even More anxious, stressed, depressed humans? because they're living near DATA CENTERS?
Is it just my generation's questioning what we read and what action we need to take when we see a spin article like this?
When I ran the question by a few in the younger generation, the first response was 'It's got to be a joke. Don't read it.'
It's not a joke when it comes to DATA CENTERS.
The Prince William residents in the Great Oaks neighborhood have been through heck: the cracked foundation and numerous cracks in walls in their half-million-dollar 'life's investment' due to the DATA CENTER bulldozers.
The headaches of the constant noise.
dB level is one factor, but it's the CONSTANCY of the irritating noise that drives residents nuts and gives their children headaches, and not being able to sleep during the night.
The generators sound like a helicopter taking off in their backyard.
Some of us know because we went into the neighborhoods to ask the residents. Unlike the Councilors in their 2 X 2 meetups on the rooftop with the DATA CENTER marketing team so they couldn't hear as much noise from ground level.
You remember that fakeout being fed to environmental activists during community meetings organized, not by the city, but by the Sierra Club, FB INFORM Fredericksburg with speakers from the DATA CENTER industry, along with the Virginia Piedmont Environmental Council, and video?
'Hidden Cost of the Cloud: DATA CENTERS in Virginia (PEC, 2024):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAPusgiz4B8
The one where Mayor Kerry Devine said 'Trust us'. and there was a groan in the packed room?
At those meetings, we were told that the generators are only supposed to come on in an emergency. or just during a periodic check of their functioning status.
Horse-hooey. They're running A LOT more this summer because NoVA: The Data Center Capital of the WORLD is experiencing unprecedented heat.
I struggled to get through this article. Questioning the sources cited, who is funding them. This can't be. I'm missing something. Is this some bunk Letter to the Editor?
Three times I went back to re-read. and then 'Bingo!'.
The column is funded by STACK INFRASTRUCTURE!
May I suggest BOLD who's funding the column next time, put it right at the start of the article or asterisk as a footnote? That will let readers know right quick that there is going to be BIAS in it.
Stack is funding the column.
Stack is the DATA CENTER developer for the DATA CENTER Technology Overlay District/TOD of 8-12 DATA CENTERS going in near the Fred Nats.
You know. The 2-25-25 TOD vote, which was rushed, as per the city's pronounced 'aggressive' timeline, by this current 7-0 Nontransparent Council.
The DATA CENTER TOD that the Planning Commission said 'no' to because the DATA CENTER Performance Agreement Standards were NOT ready.
Neither were the conditions of the Water Services Agreement. The water usage was even redacted, as seen when concerned 22401 residents filed a FOIA Freedom of Info Act to get that info on the NonDisclosure Agreement. There was some info that we were entitled to, for free, without having to spend our own money to get it through a FOIA.
Like, who is the developer-applicant of the 8-12 DATA CENTERS in 'Celebrate Virginia'?
We were blown off by Councilors with 'that's proprietary info'.
Nah, absolutely not true. Prince William seasoned activists told us that.
That's just standard MO that the honchos with this trillion-dollar DATA CENTER industry tell gullible Councilors, local government officials to say to we, the ratepayers. To pull the wool over our eyes too.
Prince William activists told us: Don't buy it. Insist that the info be released.
It took significant research time for a cohort of University of Mary Washington students to be ready to present their study of DATA CENTERS coming to our region at the UMW Youth Climate Action Summit in Spring 2025.
They too had to file a costly FOIA to go through hundreds of city emails to find info on DATA CENTERS that would not be released to the public otherwise.
These persistent UMW students created a scatter plot graph of red dots to show the location of DATA CENTERS built/proposed, and coming here.
When the PowerPoint slide appeared, there was a gasp in the audience at the number of DATA CENTERS proposed to make the Fredericksburg region part of their 'DATA CENTER capital of the WORLD'.
We learned that the DATA CENTER developers had gorged their fill in Prince William, Fauquier, Loudoun counties due to savvy residents who have caught on to their MOs, formed coalitions and run them out with protests and a lawsuit.
The PW Great Oaks neighborhood later won their lawsuit that they were not given the proper public notice on DATA CENTERS coming their way.
At the end of the UMW student presentation at Climate Action on 2-22-25, they released the info, that the city would not provide: the name of the 'Celebrate VA' developer: Stack Infrastructure.
That DATA CENTER developer name gave us the weekend to research Stack Infrastructure. That Kevin Hughes is their employee. That he was appointed on July 1, 2023 to the Fredericksburg EDA when Mitzi Brown (Councilor Jon Gerlach's wife) was Chair of the Fredericksburg Economic Development Authority/EDA, when the EDA Bylaws allowed the EDA Chair to provide the name for the Council's appointment.
Since then, the EDA Bylaws have been changed to be in alignment with the city's other commissions and boards for the Chair's rightful duty: that the EDA Chair is to contact the Clerk of Council and state only that there is an EDA 'vacancy' and not the specific name for appointment.
Prince William activists told us that Kevin Hughes, along with other DATA CENTER developers, was removed from their DATA CENTER Citizens' Advisory Board because they developed a block of voting that shut out the citizens' voices.
These DATA CENTER admins stalemated any action that the citizens wanted to take to respond to the DATA CENTERS proliferating in Prince William Co. So they got them off their DATA CENTER Citizens' Advisory Board.
As an EDA member, Kevin Hughes was part of that questionable vote to send $200,000 to Dominion for a study of transmission lines. No 'conflict of interest' was brought up by EDA.
At first, the city vote for that $200,000 was going to come directly from the city but the city's attorney advised 'hands off' and the money was processed through the EDA.
When this EDA $200,000 expenditure was questioned at the DATA CENTER community meeting, sponsored by the Sierra Club, FB 'INFORM Fredericksburg' at the Howell library in Stafford, 'as fox guarding the henhouse' and 'why do we taxpayers have to fund a DATA CENTER Transmission line study, let Dominion do their own study at their expense?' we were told that Dominion is a monopoly. And we would not be given that choice.
Since that time, the EDA minutes have been written to fake-spin the reality that residents were told this money was for a Dominion transmission line study. nah, the money was never spent, it wasn't that issue at all.
Unbelievable. This type of spin is why residents no longer trust what's happening with this set of Councilors or certain appointees.
The fakeout by this Council continues. When we were told that they would not have any more DATA CENTERS in Fredericksburg, that 8-12 DATA CENTERS out near the Fred Nats, within 200 ft of seniors and children living in the condos and apts there, it was enough.
We just rolled our eyes and shook our heads. yeah, right. David v. Goliath. Goliath is going to come in and continue pilfering.
Unless we speak up.
DATA CENTER proliferation in Fredericksburg is like 'Poltergeist' (1982): the cultural phenomenon horror scene of little 5-year-old blond, Carol Anne Freeling, being woken up by the static on the family's bedroom TV screen, mesmerized by the strobe lights. turning to look at her family and saying simply in haunting truth: 'They're here'.
'Mesmerizing' similarly to Council's 'Poltergeist' fascination, that these DATA CENTERS are going to bring in revenue for the city;
nah, that's our money: the DATA CENTERS fees embedded/hidden within every Dominion power bill in the Commonwealth, with Councilors not acknowledging the truth that we ratepayers are unfairly being billed by the Dominion monopoly to fund them through Dominion's hidden fees.