visit<\/a> to the community jewel, Gov. Josh Shapiro (who wants data centers and to be President of the United States) waxed poetic about the preservation of public parks.<\/p>\n\u201cI was standing in left field by that baseball field there \u2026 just thinking about what my life has been like as a dad over many, many years, standing on the sidelines of my kids\u2019 baseball games and imagining what it would be like if our kids were trying to play their baseball game in the shadow of a massive data center complex that, quite literally, was just in left field as proposed here,\u201d the governor said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is clear to me that there are real concerns in the communities all across Pennsylvania, especially here in Archbald, and I want you to know that I have real concerns as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Staback Park ends up a casualty of the data center invasion, Shapiro will wish he idled his abbreviated motorcade anywhere else.<\/p>\n
All three hearings will play out on the stage of the Valley View High School auditorium. Over the past six months, the audience for these tedious procedurals has grown exponentially. I predict large crowds ready to release six months of \u201creal concerns\u201d and pent-up frustration.<\/p>\n
The data center drama isn\u2019t a theatrical production, and Archbald is no prototypical damsel in distress. She played softball, field hockey and soccer in high school and now balances a demanding career with a family, a mortgage and a cat with asthma.<\/p>\n
Archbald is not waiting helplessly for rescue. She\u2019s been swimming against the tide for 150 years and isn\u2019t afraid to make waves when corporate sharks circle around her and her neighbors.<\/p>\n
Archbald didn\u2019t ask to be cast as a diva under duress, but give her a microphone and pack her alma mater\u2019s auditorium and she\u2019ll bring the house down.<\/p>\n
CHRIS KELLY, The Times-Tribune columnist, will see you there. Contact the writer: ckelly@scrantontimes.com; @cjkink on X; Chris Kelly, The Times-Tribune on Facebook; and @chriskellyink on Bluesky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019ve spent so much time in the Valley View High School auditorium over the past six months, it\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1590,2116,182,3052,139,1559,1560,178,180,179],"class_list":["post-218757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-chris-kelly","tag-data-centers","tag-local-news","tag-midvalley","tag-news","tag-opinion","tag-opinion-columnists","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218757","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=218757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}