A reader posted this comment in the Mailbox anonymously last week, and it has generated significant positive response from our paid subscribers. I’m reposting it here so everybody can access it:
I have a question I would love for Portager staff to investigate and elaborate upon: Are local governments permitted to issue stimulus payments to residents within their community? The purpose of my question: The levies failed not because of who was asking for the levies, but because the people voting on the levies have been nickle-and-dimed to death over the past 6 years as a direct result of poor governmental management at both the State- and Federal-levels (yes Biden fans, he’s to blame; yes Trump fans, he’s to blame; get over it).
Nobody wants the school system their child and/or grandchild attends to suck. Nobody wants local neighbors employed at the County JFS to switch from an employee issuing public assistance benefits to a neighbor receiving public assistance benefits. “No” voters simply cannot afford to dish out even more money than they already are, and that is why levies fail. It’s not personal against the schools nor the governmental agencies being rejected.
I read this morning that the City of Canton and Perry Township (Stark County) are holding community town halls to voice their opinions over the “data center debacle”. The communities were offered over $2.5 million cash by Amazon (the brick-and-mortar builder/funder of the proposed data center) if the communities permit Amazon to build the data center and receive a 75% tax reduction for 30 years in return.
My question for our local representatives is this: How negotiable are these proposals from Amazon (or whomever the builder/funder is)? Is anybody in local government pushing for more money from these absurdly wealthy companies?
A couple million dollars for Amazon is equivalent to the loose change I can dig out of my passenger floor board. Have any of our local elected officials ever considered accepting an enormous cash payment for approval of a data center, but then provide some of that enormous cash payment to local residents in the form of a stimulus? Why a 75% tax reduction for 30 years? What’s wrong with 25% for 10 years?
Elon Musk is and has been seeking to establish data centers in space (yes, outer space), so if our data centers are revolving around the planet in a mere 10 years at the rate we see technology expand, then what’s the purpose of a 30-year tax reduction for a brick-and-mortar data center that may very well not be functioning at all in the next 5-10 years? Why not 5 or 10 years for a tax reduction and we’ll re-negotiate from there?
My point being is this: A ton of multi-million and multi-billion dollar companies (i.e., Amazon) want OUR land and OUR open space. They also want OUR data to optimize their advertising targeting and to increase their overall profits. Why is it when they make demands, we the community members don’t see a dollar in return? If you want OUR land, OUR open space, the certainty of increasing OUR electric and water bills, and (most significantly) OUR data, then where is our annual or monthly check in return for ALLOWING you to have OUR land, open space, and data? It is OUR data. Without OUR data, they cannot operate as they desire to operate and their data centers become irrelevant.
So, the question becomes: How do our elected officials garner income for us in exchange for OUR data?
I apologize for the novel, but I’m beyond fatigued of the same monotonous, useless process like I saw on the videos of the Canton and Perry Township meetings. It’s simply one community member giving his/her take as to why he/she wants a data center, followed by another community member doing the same but as to why he/she does not want a data center. At the end of every meeting, it’s more-or-less divide-and-conquer within our own communities. The conversations need to be turned to the elected officials - what are YOU going to bring US (the community who pays for all this) in exchange for our willingness to give up our land and open space? More importantly, what are you going to negotiate and insist these multi-million and multi-billion dollar companies give US to pay for their future profits?
If the big companies refuse to negotiate, then our local elected officials simply tell them they are not welcome here. If the local elected officials accept backdoor deals and allow them anyways, then we vote those officials out at the next election for failing to do the only thing they’re hired to do - listen to us.
Let’s begin a discussion on something that creates local government transparency and puts money into our pockets, rather than blabber the same talking points we’ve all read, heard, and memorized from either side of the debate?