I’m a sucker for Norman Rockwell’s America. The iconic illustrator’s indelible front covers for the “Saturday Evening Post” illuminated a highly idealized but uncannily identifiable vision of the social contract that underpins Our Republic.

Rockwell had a singular gift for simultaneously depicting America as it was and as it should be. The inimitable artist has been dead for almost half a century, but I often wonder how he might interpret current events I’m blessed to document for a living.

Shoehorned into the riled-up crowd at Monday’s special meeting of Archbald Borough Council, I was reminded of Rockwell’s deft representation of the First Amendment, one of his “Four Freedoms” paintings inspired by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s speech of the same name.

FDR enumerated four essential freedoms all Americans are entitled to — “Freedom of Speech,” “Freedom of Worship,” “Freedom from Want” and “Freedom from Fear.” Rockwell’s rendering of “Freedom from Want” is the best-known, centered on a grandma and grandpa presenting a golden turkey to a table ringed with family. Painted in 1943, it quickly became the ubiquitous image of Thanksgiving.

Rockwell’s take on “Freedom of Speech” is much more subtle. A man in a flannel shirt and beat-up barncoat stands up in a packed room to speak his mind. If Monday’s council meeting served as Rockwell’s inspiration, he might have painted the guy stuck in the hallway or sitting on the floor.

Council’s regular meeting space was too small for any big decision, let alone one likely to forever change the face, character and future of Archbald. In a voice vote that drew howls of outrage from residents, council President Dave Moran, Maria Andreoli, Francis X. Burke and Richard Guman voted “yes” to a revised zoning ordinance that opens the borough to widespread data center development.

Councilwoman Erin Owens, who joined Councilwoman Lauren Lewis in voting against the ordinance, moved to adjourn the meeting from the outset, noting the obvious “fire and safety hazards” of having so many people crammed into such a tight space. The overflow was foreseeable, considering the throngs who swamped the basement of St. Thomas Aquinas Church in September for a hearing and a planned vote on the ordinance a few days later.

The October motion for a vote died for lack of a second, which the jubilant crowd cheered as a victory. Citizens promptly proposed changes to strengthen the ordinance. Council responded with stalling and nonsense, claiming that revising the ordinance would take too much time and make the borough vulnerable to lawsuits and a deluge of data center development applications.

It was also suggested that once passed, the ordinance could be strengthened later. The informed opposition rightly rejected that ridiculous assertion as an insult to their collective intelligence.

Kayleigh Cornell, co-founder of the Archbald Neighborhood Association, called out such “misinformation” at Monday’s meeting.

“The number one thing I heard from you on council, no offense, Jay (borough Solicitor James J. O’Connor), is telling you to pass the amendment as it is, and then you can change it after the fact,” she said. “Let me tell you, we’ve talked with multiple attorneys on this who specialize in zoning and they said it’s completely false.”

Cornell was one of many speakers who challenged council to protect the public interest and respect the overwhelming opposition to data centers near neighborhoods, schools and public parks. Moran, Andreoli, Burke and Guman responded with a hard lesson on the importance of municipal elections.

Such elections have the most direct impact on the daily lives of voters, but most don’t go to the polls or robotically cast ballots for parties over people. Of all the “Four Freedoms,” the right to express ourselves in the voting booth is the most taken for granted and the least exercised.

The social contract requires each of us to honor our obligations to uphold a free and fair society. The public interest is best protected by the public itself.

The fight against widespread data center development in Archbald is far from over. After the meeting, Justin Healey and his wife, Tamara Misewicz-Healey, distributed flyers seeking donations for a potential legal fight against the ordinance. The couple, founders of the Stop Archbald Data Centers Facebook group, started a GoFundMe campaign called “Protect Archbald: Data Center Zoning & Overlay Legal Review.” As of Tuesday, it raised $10,395 of its $15,000 goal.

If Norman Rockwell were here to paint the next frame of this fight, he might tuck a lawsuit in the front pocket of the flannel shirt of the guy stuck in the hallway.

CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, wishes you and yours a happy, safe Thanksgiving. Contact the writer: ckelly@scrantontimes.com; @cjkink on X; Chris Kelly, The Times-Tribune on Facebook; and @chriskellyink on Blue Sky Social.