FROM THE EDITOR: Data Center Discussion Splinters and Reveals a Binding Thread
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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By the time the Tuesday night Fredericksburg City Council meeting concluded with unanimous 7-0 votes in favor of three motions related to establishing a technology overlay district and bringing data centers to the city, it was closing in on 1 o’clock Wednesday morning.
With this, the future of the city is now tied to data centers. Historians will judge in time whether this move was the right one. As one individual said last night during public comments, none of us can foresee the future.
The decision to bring data centers to Fredericksburg, however, was not the most important moment last night. Something more profound than passed resolutions left the Council chambers in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
A broad, diverse, and passionate discussion about what Fredericksburg’s future will be.
Envisioning the City’s Future
Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, nearly 40 speakers came to the microphone to talk about not just their personal feelings about data centers, or their feelings about the processes that had brought everyone together that evening.
Rather, they came to talk about the city that future generations will inherit. And the debate emerged within a group of people as diverse economically, politically, racially, culturally, and age-wise as has gathered in those chambers in some time.
They were retired teachers and military personnel, pastors and data center professionals, electricians and developers, advocates and students, mothers and fathers, citizens of Fredericksburg and citizens of the surrounding counties who are as much a part of the city’s makeup as those who reside in 22401.
On the issue of the evening, they splintered. Some spoke of the need for the funds that the data center industry would bring; others expressed concerns for the environment both locally and globally; and others debated whether the project should succeed by-right or under a Special Use Permit.
Almost to a person during public comments, however, what divided them played second-fiddle to what motivated them to pack the chamber halls and speak — how Fredericksburg as a community is to envision the future.
It was a refreshing and necessary turn of topic from the often-times acerbic back-and-forth over process and political score-settling that has too often been a part of this debate.
Consider how just some of the speakers framed their comments.
A retired teacher appealed to the Council to support data centers to create the necessary funds that the city’s schools desperately need. Another citizen, who has worked with the local Lion’s Club to raise money for the enrichment opportunities that are too-often lacking in economically disadvantaged school districts like Fredericksburg, made the same appeal:
“I know many people are against this data … center, but it can do an awful lot of good for Fredericksburg, for our schools, for the people who live here…. I know many people are concerned about the environment…. Take your time. Make that decision. But make it so that it can help Fredericksburg and improve Fredericksburg and the school system.”
A parent questioned whether more funds for schools are worth the trade-off if it means the loss of natural habitat.
A bi-vocational minister spoke of the opportunities that data centers have provided him and his family members. A local electrician similarly discussed the quality of life working in the industry has given him, and his hope that data centers here would mean a much shorter commute to work.
Students from the University of Mary Washington, along with other city residents, expressed concerns about the impact of data centers on climate change. And one resident worried that a mistake now would leave a mess for college students to clean up 50 years from now.
Underlying all their points of view, however, was a common thread — The concern is not for me, but for those who are to come.
The City Writ Large
Of all the presentations made, perhaps Meghann Cotter, director of Micah Ministries, delivered the talk that best exemplified this concern for tomorrow.
While turnout was large Tuesday night, Cotter correctly noted that there are many more, arguably louder, voices who could not attend because they lack the “time, transportation, and communication skills to participate in this forum.”
“From where I sit in relationship with these neighbors,” she continued, “their stories compel me to talk to you tonight about the past need, the current need, and the visionary need for diversification of city resources, which I believe are necessary to be a city where everyone’s flourishing matters.”
A longtime nonprofit leader, Cotter spoke of the importance of government funding to the critical community work that she and others are doing. And she spoke of how that money is no longer assured.
“We are all going to have to find ways to do more,” she said, “including what we are already doing, with less funding from long-reliable funding sources.”
Of current needs, she noted that “Fredericksburg is an urbanizing city with a suburban mindset.” The city, she said, “is the epicenter of urban issues in the region.” While the surrounding counties will reap hundreds of millions from data centers, they will be “pushing their problems into the city.”
Part of the fight, she said, is convincing the neighboring counties that they, too, are urbanizing. However, we’re also going to have to find a way forward to support the challenges that are being forced on downtown, she added.
“While we fight for regionalism together,” Cotter said, “are we going to let the counties collect the resources, with no obligation and no participation in our shared urban issues, at the city’s expense? And I’m not just talking dollars when I say this, I’m talking about suffering that occurs to our fellow human beings when local governments cannot get creative about their funding streams and have to leave that burden on the backs of taxpayers, which can’t [deliver] enough for the most basic services.”
She ended with an appeal for the city to “be in a position of visionary need.”
“The question becomes,” she said, “what could we do if we did have enough money? Can my child’s teacher get fair pay? Can the people who work in our restaurants, drive city trash trucks, work for the police/fire department afford to live in the city? Could we be a community where no one sleeps outside? What other ways could we be creative about care for all of our neighbors.”
Her conclusion? “I don’t believe that we have to live together in a state of scarcity. Micah supports any measure that will help us become an abundant community for everyone.”
Building for Tomorrow
Cotter, like the vast majority of speakers at Council meeting last night, focused her thoughts on what is coming. And on building a better tomorrow for everyone.
For some, that meant standing against data centers in the region. For others, that meant asking the process to slow down and do more study. And for still others, it meant taking the opportunity before the city to meet its growing needs.
With last night’s vote, the question of data centers is now settled.
What is not settled is the future of Fredericksburg and the region that we call home.
The people who will decide that future were in the chambers last night. And it is incumbent upon them — indeed, upon us all — as data centers morph from idea to reality, that those in the room not see last night’s votes as wins or losses.
Rather, they should see those votes as the ground floor of building a better tomorrow for those to come.
The people in that room share a passion for the future, but they must grasp and run with it. More important, they mustn’t let the splintering blind them to the greater challenge before us.
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