Hundreds showed up at the Prince George’s Sports and Learning Complex in Landover, Maryland to voice their opinions about the future of data centers in the county.
The county’s qualified data center task force held three community meetings in July but felt attendance at those were low, so they scheduled the one on Saturday. More than 400 people registered.
Participants were encouraged to write down their thoughts about data centers. Their responses will be forwarded to the task force, which Councilmember Wala Blegay is a part of.
“We felt like if you did a whole town hall style that, you only hear from the people who get the mic to speak, right? But if you do it like this, then everybody feels comfortable expressing themselves,” she said.
The issue of data centers has been a hot topic in Prince George’s County recently, with many protesting plans to build one at the old Landover Mall site.
In September, the county placed a moratorium on data centers to allow the task force to continue their work and present its recommendations to the county council.
Before the meeting started, a group gathered outside the Sports and Learning Complex to protest data center development in the county. They’ve held similar rallies in the past.
“Prince George’s County, like a lot of other jurisdictions, bought into the false premise that data centers were basically cash cows to generate tax revenue and have relatively little impact on communities or the environment or public health or rate payers or taxpayers, and that’s turning out not to be true,” said Greg Smith, a Prince George’s County resident.
Darron Witten, who is in a union that represents many data center employees, was also there. He is in favor of data centers.
“Data centers, they don’t cause pollution. They don’t eat up power like they saying that they do, you know,” he said.
The task force will meet two more times before presenting their recommendations on data center development to the county, which they have to do before the end of November.
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