By President Donald Trump’s consistently shifty standards, Archbald is the “luckiest” little town in America.
Already “blessed” with six proposals for invasive data centers, borough residents received unsolicited “love letters” from a seventh suitor last week.
The new “beau” christened the courtship with a wilted corsage dumped on doorsteps stripped of their welcome mats months ago.
New York-based developer PNK Group mailed flyers and ran Facebook ads directing Archbald residents to an online survey about its plans to build data centers in the Valley View Business Park across the street from the Chewy warehouse.
The survey’s first question asked Archbald residents how long they’ve lived in “Valley View” and/or Schuylkill County.
I’m not making that up.
PNK Group is so smitten with Archbald, its marketing team couldn’t be bothered to Google the borough’s actual name and learn that it’s in Lackawanna County — and that locals don’t respond well to pro-data center junk mail.
Nor do they embrace presidential pom-pom twirling for the government-subsidized annihilation of small towns and rural communities from sea to shining sea.
Responding to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s announcement of an open-ended moratorium on new data center development in the Empire State, Trump, the nation’s most ardent advocate for data centers (and the surveillance state they would enable), took to “Truth Social” to vent.
WARNING: The following contains content that may be unsuitable for readers with any grasp of basic grammar or the existential threat posed by “artificial intelligence.”
“One of the biggest Driving Forces in the Future for Jobs, are Data Centers. They are big, strong, bold, and Money Machines for the State in which they are built. Governor Kathy Hochul, for political reasons, has terminated all Data Centers being built, or to be built, in New York State.
“These Companies are now being sought in Alabama, Florida, Texas, Arizona, and many other States. Both the Taxes and the Jobs amount to LIQUID GOLD! New York State has made a terrible decision. All of this Income, and other Benefits, will be going to Red States, and some Blue, where Data Centers are sought as Cash Cows, with Lower Taxes and Record Setting Jobs.
“… Data Centers are tremendous WINS for the States and Communities that are lucky enough to get them…”
When we chatted Tuesday morning, Tamara Misewicz-Healey was feeling anything but lucky.
“So this week we learned of a potential seventh hyperscale data center coming to our town,” the co-founder of the grassroots resistance group Stop Archbald Data Centers said as her three young children played in the background.
“I definitely don’t feel lucky about it. I feel angry. I feel like everything I love is being threatened, from my home to my family to our health, our town, our representation (by elected officials) and on a larger scale, our freedom …
“In some ways, it really feels like we’ve been at war in Archbald.”
It’s a sadly apt characterization of the bombardment of data center proposals borough residents have been forced to absorb over the past year. Tammy, as she is best known, said fighting off “strong, bold, Money Machines” and the billionaires behind them has been hard on the everyday citizens driving the resistance.
“A lot of us who have really been in the arena on this feel like we’ve been operating in survival mode for about a year now, and that really takes its toll on your (mental and physical) health,” she said.
“Honestly, for me, the most heartbreaking part is the loss of time with my kids.”
Tammy and her husband, Justin, who co-founded Stop Archbald Data Centers, have three children ages 2, 3 and 6. She took a hiatus from her professional career to be a stay-at-home mom. Then the invasion came.
“I was really looking forward to this time, getting to be in that role for once in my life and really spend that very limited precious time completely focused on them,” she said.
“And I feel like that was robbed from me.”
Another sadly apt characterization of the peace of mind and sense of individual and community security that’s been robbed from the people of Archbald over the past year. It’s hard to relax with so many targets on the borough’s back.
PNK Group is way late to the invasion. Any chance of winning widespread public support for invasive data center development anywhere in Pennsylvania expired months ago.
PNK Group’s sloppy, self-owning introduction to Archbald mirrors the hapless, backfiring rollouts of other outside exploiters targeting the borough. Why would the residents of any town welcome newcomers who don’t know its name or its home county?
PNK Group’s mailer is just the latest misfire in a public relations war that turned against data centers months ago. People don’t much care where data center developers come from, as long as they spend their “liquid gold” somewhere else.
While resisting the invasion eats up time she could spend with her children, Tammy said the hours she spends organizing, answering emails and attending public hearings is an essential investment in their future. “Artificial intelligence” is already taking more than it has ever given.
“They keep saying how AI is the future, how it’s going to serve humans, life is going to get easier, it’s going to do all these jobs we don’t want, it’s going to be this great thing that serves us so that we can have all this free time to just enjoy the best of life,” she said.
“But tell me, in reality, if it doesn’t actually feel like we’re the ones serving it already.”
CHRIS KELLY, The Times-Tribune columnist, is grateful for human beings who stand up for humanity Contact the writer: ckelly@scrantontimes.com; @cjkink on X; Chris Kelly, The Times-Tribune on Facebook; and @chriskellyink on Bluesky.