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So, remember those planning and zoning meetings that have been occurring for the past few months now? The ones meant to get public opinion about data center regulations and incorporate public feedback into proposed regulations? Stuff like the data center roundtable, where over one hundred citizens voiced their concerns and regulation ideas to ease the impacts development would bring?
Yeah, turns out they were pretty worthless and our feedback was tossed out because it isn’t worth anything in dollars.
During the October 26 city council meeting, we learned that these data center regulations were not being drafted by us, but rather the data center developers. While discussing if all data centers should use closed-loop cooling systems, some language pops up that “actually, data centers CAN use evaporative cooling if they’d like!” that was stated to have been written by… Amir Atefi, a man who doesn’t live here. A man that our elected officials are not beholden to. A man who has targeted our home with the promise of a data center. And it’s HIM that gets to write the words that will impact our little town for the next generations to come, and not the people who will actually be living here for the next generations to come? (This is public record by the way, go look at the meeting recording and hear it for yourself!)
What was the point of getting OUR public opinion if it was going to be tossed aside regardless of how hard we fought to get our words heard? As far as I’ve seen, pretty much NOTHING brought up in the data center roundtable discussion made it into these proposed regulations (such as decommissioning plans, size limits, etc.). What was the point of trying to get regulations as tight and transparent as possible if the regulations had pretty much already been bought out and written ahead of time by a rich tech CEO who doesn’t represent the wishes and viewpoints of Marshalltown? Literally, what was the point of acting like we had a say for MONTHS on end?
The city council of Marshalltown has failed its constituents by failing to listen to the citizens that elected them. I guess this is our reminder that even outside the circus that is Washington D.C., the only voices that matter are the voices with heaps and heaps of money behind their words.