speech Before City Council on proposed Data-Center

It used to take a long time to get a controversial issue before a legislative body. You had environmental requirements to be considered, legal issues, land-use, and concerns for over-taxing water and sewage installations. This was not that long ago within my political memory. At some time around the 1980s, this changed. Thanks to generous campaign donations to conservative groups in the political underworld, and a political party willing to kiss the ring of a president who can threaten their political future, the government supposedly, of the people, is now wholly in the greased palms of a conservative Supreme Court and members of both parties who mostly infest the right. 

This is not just a national issue. It applies to local governments as well. Even in blue states. Which brings us to the proposed Data Center in SE Salem near the county jail. Not yet two weeks ago word emerged of a proposed Data Center. It has the stink of a done deal. Many of us speaking before you tonight do not support a Data center, even properly sited. Which this is not close to being. In fact, people of both parties are questioning the wisdom of those wishing to install Data centers in nearly every state across this Continent. Utah may will turn blue because people with too much money wish to make too much more money on a Data-Center, regardless of the damage it may do. We had a similar case back in the 80s, where proponents of nuclear power convinced a consortium of Oregon and Washington legislators to build and run nuclear power facilities in remote places in Washington and Oregon. The ironic acronym they chose to call themselves was Washington Public Power Supply; WPPS (pronounced WOOPS). That plan went through like popcorn through a goose. Largely because of this too-quick legislative acceptance, those nuclear power facilities by now have been carted away to a disposal facility capable of envisioning a nuclear half-life. That cost Oregon and Washington money that we could have used better. Data-Centers are even more unpopular than nuclear power production. I caution our members of the Salem Chamber of Congress and VERRUS to think harder about the possible adverse effects of pushing this thing out like a bowel movement.