{"id":188850,"date":"2026-05-10T23:09:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T23:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/188850\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T23:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T23:09:10","slug":"township-supervisor-takes-stand-against-data-center-proposal-in-northampton-county-northampton-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/188850\/","title":{"rendered":"Township supervisor takes stand against data center proposal in Northampton County | Northampton County"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPPER MOUNT BETHEL TOWNSHIP, Pa. – The Chair of a township board of supervisors in Northampton County wants to set the record straight about where he stands on a proposed data center.<\/p>\n

After hearing from opponents of the planned project in Lower Mount Bethel Township on Monday<\/a>, we had the chance to speak directly with Supervisor Chris Cook to learn how he feels about the potential of replacing farm land with a server farm.<\/p>\n

“We’re just a small, sleepy town and this is just, it’s been overwhelming,” said Cook.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Cook and his colleagues on the Township Board learned the J.G. Petrucci Company and Peron Development want to put a hyperscale data center<\/a>\u00a0on open farm land. Cook said the push back from the community has been intense.<\/p>\n

“It’s been hard. I mean I’ve been getting a lot of harassing phone calls. I’ve been threatened,” said Cook.<\/p>\n

Cook has been specifically targeted thanks to a newsletter sent out by the IBEW, the union he’s a member of. It states in part that Cook is “working diligently to get this across the finish line.”<\/p>\n

“My union, we talked about it, they found out about it, the development coming in, and yeah, I was excited about it. I absolutely was,” said Cook.<\/p>\n

“But that changed at some point,” said Reporter Rob Manch.<\/p>\n

“It did,” said Cook.<\/p>\n

Cook said it changed at a town hall meeting<\/a>\u00a0hosted by the developers.<\/p>\n

“I was at the meeting, and I was sitting in the back of the room, and I was like you’ve got to be kidding me. It was a big red area, and I’m like no way,” said Cook.<\/p>\n

We put the question to Cook directly.<\/p>\n

“Do you think the jobs that the data center would bring is worth the loss of that farmland?” asked Manch.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think there’s nothing worth the loss of that farmland,” said Cook.<\/p>\n

And Cook said he wants to get that across to as many property owners in the Township as possible.<\/p>\n

“Maybe I could do something where I could set up an office hours-type thing and speak to residents. Really hear their concerns,” said Cook.<\/p>\n

And Cook said he plans to do more research about what he can do to actually address those concerns with action.<\/p>\n

“Can a Township push back against a project like this?” asked Manch.<\/p>\n

“We’re going to find out,” said Cook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UPPER MOUNT BETHEL TOWNSHIP, Pa. – The Chair of a township board of supervisors in Northampton County wants…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,153,155,154,434],"class_list":["post-188850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-northampton-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}