Former Mayor Eric Adams just got a “Bronx cheer” all the way in Wisconsin.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Adams was in Wisconsin Rapids emceeing a town hall on behalf of a data center developer, PNK Group.<\/p>\n
Adams, who appeared with a PNK Group official, was jeered and heckled throughout.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we like it or not, folks, data centers are gonna be here,\u201d Adams said, a remark eliciting shouts from the crowd.<\/p>\n
Wisconsin Rapids is a city of more than 18,000 people, two hours north of Wisconsin\u2019s capital, Madison. The online publication, Hell Gate, first reported on Adams\u2019 Saturday appearance.<\/p>\n
Adams is a paid consulting advisor to the developer PNK Group, according to a company spokesman.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it\u2019s not here, it will be somewhere else,\u201d he told the crowd.<\/p>\n
Adams\u2019 reputation \u2014 particularly his ultimately dismissed federal corruption indictment \u2014 preceded him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know who thought bringing on a pretty high-profile person with financial crimes on the record was a smart idea for PR to the already opposed data center, but not a good choice,\u201d Emily Oetzman, an organizer with a group opposing the data center called South Wood County Neighbors for Responsible Development. \u201cThey struggled to answer any questions meaningfully.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adams\u2019 spokesman, Todd Shapiro, said the video doesn\u2019t show the many attendees who thanked him and asked questions after the town hall.<\/p>\n
Adams\u2019 work with PNK Group, Shapiro said, \u201cis a continuation of the same pro-growth, pro-innovation philosophy he championed while serving as mayor.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement, PNK Group said Adams is excited about this technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving led one of the world\u2019s most complex cities as Mayor of New York, he brings extensive experience in community engagement, stakeholder communication, and navigating large-scale projects with diverse constituencies,\u201d the company statement said.<\/p>\n
Jonah Joosten attended the meeting and said he found Adams\u2019 approach \u201ccheesy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey said, we know who you are. We know you\u2019re scammy. His response back is, \u2018I\u2019m your community neighbor,\u2019\u201d Joosten said.<\/p>\n
Joosten explained the opposition to the data center proposed on the site of an old paper mill.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not happy with the heat displacement that they can\u2019t tell you where the heat is,\u201d Joosten said. \u201cWe\u2019re in the middle of the drought. He came during a drought to try to sell something that\u2019s going to be sitting on our water table.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a former top aide in Adams\u2019 City Hall, Tiffany Raspberry, was also in Wisconsin. Raspberry is currently a board member at the New York City Economic Development Corporation.<\/p>\n
Raspberry did not return a request for comment by email.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Mayor Eric Adams just got a “Bronx cheer” all the way in Wisconsin. On Saturday, Adams was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[109,25,13408,9,24,12,63,87,134,136,135,27,200],"class_list":["post-313862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-dan-rivoli","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-politics","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}