Here in Springfield IL we just had a city meeting.
4 hours long. They let anyone talk who wanted to. And you could even go twice (with 2 min limits ).
I really respected that.
Most counsel is Republican. Which is concerning.
We did manage to get them to table the vote after it came to light that the water they were planning on using is slated to come from a local lake that is already in the deficit (waterly lake).
And that they filed the wrong zoning. They filed it as agriculture.
But want to hear something super shitty. ?
About 1/5 of the people there ,(packed house with people standing) were from local unions in support of the data center.
These data center fuckers have been going to local unions and telling them how it's going to give them all jobs and all this b.s.
And a lot of speakers mentioned how low it was for the billionaire companies to turn our union members against their own communities.
There was only like 5 of them that spoke and they honestly sounded like selfish pricks.
One guy said the centers were going up rather we liked it or not so why not get the money.
Another said he didn't care if AI made other people lose their jobs because his job was more important.
Another idiot , in response to an example of a previous company who left asbestos that needed cleaned up, that the city had to pay for said "I worked on that clean up and it was good money".
Yeah. Really did not help their image. I was super disappointed in them.
They really think these data center companies are their buddy.
Also. Sangamon county can't provide the power they need. So they were planning on putting like 50 diesel generators that would run 24/7.
I can't believe the council members were ready to allow this.
Someone there also said the company had been threatening to sue council members if they didn't pass it. The speaker reminder them that we would sue them if they did. And investigate their finances like others are doing already in other cities with these awful data centers.
