We don’t want them here....

I live in Archbald, which is currently being threatened by greedy developers, slimy lawyers, and hack politicians. If this trifecta has their way the borough will be rimmed with 14 AI data centers, each the size of a football field. In a few years, once the technology rolls over them, they’ll be abandoned, and we’ll be left with rotting hulks serving as sentinels, ever-present reminders of our area’s staggering ability to fuck itself.

Here we are, still dealing with the wreckage the coal barons left behind generations ago, and somehow the area still has a collective “kick-me” sign on its back. This is the part that really pisses me off. That my hometown is viewed as a large collection of rubes, overseen by political bosses who can be bought with a mere lunch bag stuffed with $20 bills.

That second bit has been sort of ingrained in our heads by now. The place can feel like a walking ethics violation at times. In NEPA if the county commissioners don’t end up in prison people assume they just didn’t get caught. Our judicial scandals turn into Oscar contenders. Qualifications for public office can consist of anything from buying enough rounds to being the starting quarterback at Penn State. Or simply having the right last name.

So yea, I was thinking that this was a done deal. My cynicism knows no bounds. In my head the lunches have already been dispersed, the yes votes on council have already planned their escapes to Florida, and the lawyers have moved to the back-room for victory cigars.

But now I’m not so sure.

The howls of outrage from my neighbors has been music to my ears. The sudden flip-flopping of certain politicians, who realized that being seen as the pro-data center candidate is a re-election death sentence, has warmed my cold cold heart.

Archbald is pissed off from being pissed on, and lots of folks are gonna be running for cover.

I’m proud of my hometown.

There is light all over this now. Even the national media is paying attention. Increasingly the fancy power-point presentations promising everything from millions of dollars in tax revenue to “hundreds of high paying jobs” are being laughed out of the room. Internal documents and emails, many of them outlining an extremely cozy relationship between the borough solicitor and the proposed developers, are being released. The bullshit is being called, in other words, and Archbald Borough Council president Dave Moran is suddenly flopping like a fish washed up on the beach. In the face of a barrage of fact checking from his neighbors at a recent public hearing he could only screech “I thought Archbald was better than this!”, which as you can imagine went over about as well as a husband telling his wife to “calm down”.

Moran might be good at some things, but public relations is not one of them. That last time I saw a foot shot like that was when Pesci drilled Spider for not fixing his drink fast enough in the card game scene from Goodfellas.

The only jobs these places will create will be the type that require a fucking broom. Utility bills will sky-rocket, nobody is quite sure where all the water they’ll need is going to come from (there has been mentions of poaching water from Lake Scranton). The health effects of having these things in our backyard will still be popping up a generation from now.

The September/October views of our landscape can be as stunning as anyone’s. They are brochure-worthy postcards that can do real estate agent’s job for them. Now the place could look like Concrete City.

Moran is the Snidely Whiplash in all of this….a man who would be twirling the edges of his moustache if he had one. I know nothing about him other than his sudden infatuation with super-charging his ChatGPT queries. His imperious behavior at council meetings certainly doesn’t win him any popularity contests. That a guy who I might have called to deal with my dented curb is now in a position to destroy the property value of my home is a wild take on NEPA politicos. The borough solicitor, on the other hand, is a guy I went to High School with. A wonderful guy. I never anticipated him being on the wrong side of history, but the bumps and bruises of life lead people down all sorts of roads. I can only hope he has a change of heart. He is playing a character that I don’t recognize anymore.

AI is here and it ain’t going away. I am both fascinated and repulsed by it. But I DO use it at work (until it replaces me), so it feels a little hypocritical for me to go all NIMBY over this.

That being said, do I care?

I do not.

Fuck these things. I use electricity too, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna allow a substation in my living room.

Put these data centers on the moon. Or on the top of some mountain. Or drop them into Chernobyl. There’s some empty real estate there.

We don’t want them here.

In a bit…

—tf