Residents of Archbald have spent more than a year fighting data center development. Now, they’re taking time away from tense meetings and hearings to spend together.
ARCHBALD, Pa. — For more than a year, the people of Archbald have spent countless hours in meetings and hearings providing their own research and feelings about the rapid rise of data center proposals all throughout their community.
Friday evening was time for that same community to spend time together outside of those cramped rooms and tense environments to support each other and their shared fight.
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“I think the people of Archbald deserve this. I think we really just want to have a lot of fun, you know, there’s a lot of hanging over us all the time, so this is just a chance to unwind,” said John Andreoli of Archbald.
For more than a year, hundreds of residents have spent hundreds of hours together, at meetings and hearings, fighting against six different data center campus proposals that would all be built in their borough.
It’s a fight that community events like these help raise funds for.
“Have to pay for an attorney to represent us, most recently in the conditional use hearing with the Wildcat, we just brought in an expert, so there are expenses, which means we need money to fund this and to keep the fight going and alive,” said Justin Healey of Archbald.
To raise that money, folks were selling baked goods, doing face painting, and selling their own artwork.
“I don’t know the technical things that the others know; we all contribute in our way, but whatever I can do to help raise money for the cause, for our attorney, for our witnesses, it’s what we want to do,” said Amy Swingle of Archbald.
For residents who’ve been fighting in high school auditoriums and cramped rooms for months, this community event is a chance to get to be with their neighbors in a less tense environment.
“It can be kind of a stressful event, fighting for something you really believe in, something you really don’t want to happen in your own backyard, as opposed to this, where it’s, again, we’re not inside, we’re outside, we’re enjoying the sunshine,” said Edmund Feliciano of Archbald.
It’s also a chance for those who haven’t been able to come to meetings to still be able to show their support for a fight they too are affected by.
“A lot of people are super busy, people work, people have families, so being able to attend a lot of those meetings isn’t feasible for a lot of people,” said Meghan Carnevale of Archbald. “So, something like this is fun where you can bring your family to, you can show your support, so it’s fun, I’m happy to be here.”