Fearing for my sanity and fidgety as an itchy toddler in church, I fled the Valley View High School auditorium for a quick breath of fresh air and a few hits of nicotine on the sidewalk outside.

Yes, smoking is self-abuse. So is attending marathon hyperscale data center hearings, but somebody’s gotta do it.

Tuesday’s convocation was the fifth installment of Archbald Borough Council’s conditional use hearing on Essential Energy LLC’s proposed 400-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant next to Staback Park in Archbald. The developer insists the plant will connect to the grid and not be used primarily to power the 620,000-square-foot data center that the same developer plans to build RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET.

Said developer also wants to build four data centers and three power plants on Bell Mountain in Dickson City, and also insists they are unrelated to each other. These claims may eventually prove to be true, but no one I’ve chatted with at hearings believes it, or anything else the developer’s “expert” witnesses say.

Why? Because they say so little of any substance. Specifics are laughably scarce. Speculation, semantics and poorly scripted subterfuge are abundant. Often, the only sane response is to take a brief break from the absurdity to keep your eyes from rolling out of your head.

Essential Energy’s first witness on Tuesday was civil engineer W. Casey Deller, who oversaw a “safety report” on the project but seemed to know precious little about its dubious findings. Under cross-examination by Archbald special counsel Brett C. Flower, Deller deflected several straightforward questions seeking basic details.

Deller repeatedly deferred to the testimony of other experts whose work he allegedly supervised but was unable to reliably verbalize. Details will come during the permitting process, he said, and existing regulations will ensure the eventual design of the project complies with established safety standards.

“At the conditional use phase, it’s our obligation to show that a facility of this nature can be designed, constructed and operated in a way that can comply with all the safety, public health and standards in all the different permitting processes, from a typical sense,” he said.

“CAN” is the key word in Deller’s flatulent response and in the “safety report” he “supervised.” Imagine the absurdity of testifying with a straight, sneering face that a natural gas power plant near homes, schools and public parks is not a significant threat to neighbors because it CAN be built in compliance with local, state and federal regulations.

So CAN an amusement park. We’d still want to know where the roller-coasters will go and how high the Ferris wheel will reach in case the volunteer fire company needs a new ladder truck to pluck stuck riders from stalled attractions.

Next to homes, schools and a public park would be an unsuitable site for an amusement park. Essential Energy wants to build a natural gas power plant without revealing essential details of the project.

Deller and other Essential Energy experts testified that many essential details remain undecided because the project is still in the “conceptual stage.” Hope those poor souls suspended on a flaming Ferris wheel don’t croak while waiting on “conceptual” firefighting apparatus.

It was the mental image of such a ridiculous but conceivable calamity (and my nicotine addiction) that sent me striding for the exit. Outside, I bumped into a core volunteer with Stop Archbald Data Centers, the crowd-funded grassroots group leading the local resistance. She, too, was taking a break from Deller’s empty, aggravating testimony.

We had a few exasperated laughs about the absurdity of expecting local government officials to approve a project while refusing to reveal key details before the conversation took a more serious turn. She said she is regularly asked by neighbors whether the resistance has any real chance of saving Archbald from industrialized annihilation.

“They’re like, ‘Can we really win this thing?’ ” she said.

Gov. Josh Shapiro answered that question a few hours earlier in the day. Obviously responding to unprecedented bipartisan public pressure, the governor issued an executive order imposing strict conditions on data center development in the state. At a press conference and a series of subsequent interviews, Shapiro waxed poetic about “walking the left field line” of the Little League diamond at Staback Park, recognizing Archbald for what it is — ground zero of the data center invasion in Pennsylvania.

Shapiro may as well have named his executive order the “Archbald Amendment.” He governs a state of about 13 million people, but the roughly 7,500 residents of Archbald are clearly on his ambitious mind as he positions himself as a bankable candidate to lead a nation of 349 million.

As I noted in the choppy wake of the governor’s “private” May visit with a handful of Archbald residents, Shapiro is simultaneously running two races — one for reelection and another for president in 2028. He is extremely unlikely to lose to state Treasurer Stacy Garrity in November, but any association with the data center invasion would be a heavy burden to carry to Pennsylvania Avenue.

Shapiro deserves praise for finally reading the room and acting in his constituents’ interest. Accountability is what we claim to want from elected officials. When we get it, we should recognize and celebrate it.

That said, accountability is a two-way street bisected by blind alleys. Some may forgive Shapiro for his earnest early cheerleading for data centers, but no one should forget it. However unintentionally, the governor had a hand in creating this mess. Cleaning it up will take more than a strict but belated executive order and tough talk on the campaign trail.

It’s also important to note that Shapiro’s executive order does not call for the moratorium a clear majority of Pennsylvanians say they want while local zoning boards and governments and state regulations catch up. Shapiro’s order gives the governor the political benefit of denouncing “speculative” and “predatory” data center developers while clinging to the thoroughly debunked myth that any other kind exists.

Overall, Shapiro’s order is inadequate, but an encouraging step in the right direction. The “Fast Track” program now excludes data centers, and the order outlaws nondisclosure agreements, the original sin that allowed developers to move in secrecy while keeping communities in the dark about who is targeting them and who is selling them out.

Shapiro’s early advocacy gave the invasion a head start developers won’t relinquish without a fight. This ain’t over. Far from it. Shapiro’s about-face is a win for the resistance, but ultimate victory will require relentless, rising pressure on him and any other elected official who dares defy the clear, collective will of the people.

Fearing I might miss a rare morsel of useful information, I trudged back to the auditorium for the testimony of Andrew Markle, a global player in energy generation who said he’s built 180 natural gas power plants across the nation and around the world.

Markle is the “technical lead” of the Essential Energy project and proved extremely knowledgeable about incidental minutiae no one in the crowd of roughly 75 cared about.

The lone interesting aspect of Markle’s testimony was his pedigree. He said he had a key role in the construction of the largest thermal power plant in Colombia, developing three 1,000-megawatt facilities in Turkey and that he “just worked on a plant for xAI,” Elon Musk’s “artificial intelligence” company.

Not sure the Musk reference was the flex Markle seemed to think it was, but his other credits naturally make one wonder why a global heavy-hitter was signed up to step to the plate for a 400-megawatt power plant next to a Little League field in tiny Archbald. Maybe Markle’s spot on the Essential Energy roster will be demystified when he is cross-examined at the next hearing, Sept. 29 at 5 p.m. in the Valley View High School auditorium, 1 Columbus Drive, Archbald.

In the meantime, I CAN summarize all of the testimony offered on behalf of Essential Energy and essentially all of the other applicants hoping to pave over Archbald with data centers and power plants in two words, and the public response in just one.

“Trust us.”

“No.”

CHRIS KELLY, The Times-Tribune columnist, was a fidgety toddler in church. Contact the writer: ckelly@scrantontimes.com; @cjkink on X; Chris Kelly, The Times-Tribune on Facebook; and @chriskellyink on Bluesky.