Our shared regional backyard got bigger Thursday night.<\/p>\n
Dozens of Ransom Twp. homeowners and residents of neighboring communities swarmed the township\u2019s Municipal Building for a hearing on a request to accommodate a proposed data center development along Newton Road on West Mountain.<\/p>\n
At least 100 people jammed into every spare inch of the building. The crowd was too big for the tiny space, and its resistance to the development too uniform for the board of supervisors to go through with the hearing as poorly planned. It was continued until Tuesday at 6 p.m. in the Municipal Building\u2019s garage.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s hoping the garage is heated and equipped with microphones.<\/p>\n
Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti and Lackawanna County Controller Gary DiBileo turned out Thursday to protect the city\u2019s interests, a rare intergovernmental appearance that reflected the regional scope of the AI boom poised to make all of us second-class citizens of Data Center Valley.<\/p>\n
DiBileo, who is also president of the Keyser Valley Neighborhood Association, wore a No Data Centers pin on his overcoat and distributed yard signs with the same straight-edged message.<\/p>\n
It was good to see Scranton get in the game. It was bound to happen after a state Department of Environmental Protection hearing last week revealed that the developers of Project Gravity plan to cool their proposed seven-building data center campus in Archbald with water drawn from Lake Scranton, the city\u2019s main source of drinking water.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, the Midvalley doesn\u2019t seem so far up da line.<\/p>\n
The last thing Keyser Valley residents need is to be downhill from still more impervious surfaces that increase the spill of stormwater. The section of the city was devastated by flooding in 2023 and the addition of a mammoth concrete data center atop West Mountain could send the investment of $7.5 million in federal funding for stormwater management improvements down the drain.<\/p>\n
Laura McGarry, a resident of the Fawnwood development who doesn\u2019t want to be dumped on, started the tide against holding the hearing as scheduled. McGarry raised legitimate questions about how the hearing was advertised, how the application was handled and the scarcity of project details provided to the public, but it was her advocacy for citizens crowded out of the meeting room that seemed to sway the board.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve been offered the opportunity to participate as a party and cross-examine witnesses,\u201d McGarry said of the excluded citizens in the hallway. \u201cHow can they cross-examine witnesses if they can\u2019t hear them testify?\u201d<\/p>\n
Hearing being an essential element of any hearing, township Solicitor Kevin Conaboy asked the supervisors whether they wanted to continue the hearing-impaired hearing. Michael Mey, attorney for developer Scranton Materials LLC, objected to delaying the hearing beyond 60 days from the developer\u2019s application, which was filed in November.<\/p>\n
Some (myself included) noticed that the supervisors and Conaboy appeared to violate the state Sunshine Law by going into executive session to discuss whether to continue the hearing. Also known as the Open Meetings Law, the act restricts what official bodies can discuss in secret.<\/p>\n
The most widely known exceptions include personnel matters, current or pending litigation, collective bargaining strategy and arbitration. I was unable to reach Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association (my go-to source on interpreting the law), so I\u2019m stuck with the law\u2019s text, which appears to allow what the supervisors did:<\/p>\n
An official body may enter into executive session \u201cto consult with its attorney or other professional advisor about information or strategy regarding litigation or issues as to which identifiable complaints are expected to be filed \u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n
McGarry and Mey both hinted that legal complaints were a possibility. I\u2019ll follow up with Melewsky, but for now I\u2019m inclined to extend the supervisors and Conaboy the benefit of a doubt. They announced publicly what they discussed privately, as required by the law. Ultimately, the supervisors made the responsible decision and continued the hearing.<\/p>\n
That said, the supervisors\u2019 poor preparation and lack of planning contributed to making the continuation necessary. The hearing was a source of widespread chatter on antisocial media for at least a week prior and data center development is the most widely opposed local issue in decades. The supervisors were the only ones in the room who didn\u2019t expect an overflow crowd.<\/p>\n
Microphones are standard for any public meeting, and essential for public hearings where testimony is recorded. Even those who managed to squeeze into the meeting room Thursday struggled to hear what was said. Worse, the supervisors and Conaboy didn\u2019t have the details of the proposed development on hand to share with the public. Plans were posted to ransomtownshippa.gov<\/a> Friday. Scroll to the bottom of the screen.<\/p>\n The supervisors ultimately did the right thing in continuing the hearing, but their poor planning and lack of preparation point to a pernicious pitfall for small communities targeted by mammoth corporations. Momentous decisions with far-reaching consequences are being made by laymen with little understanding of the industries encroaching on their communities and scant experience dealing with slick attorneys representing exploitative invaders.<\/p>\n In this sense, \u201clocal control\u201d is a double-edged sword. We want locally accountable officials to control local development, but forget that most of them have no more experience or expertise than the average neighbor who doesn\u2019t vote in municipal elections.<\/p>\n Just another reminder that local elections matter. If they drew the kind of interest and participation Thursday\u2019s hearing-impaired hearing inspired, our backyard might not be so attractive to exploitative invaders.<\/p>\n