Spitting Into the Wind

  Remarks to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors: January 24, 2023 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville.   During her recent State of the County address, Chair Wheeler touted the county’s adoption of a collective bargaining ordinance, allowing employees to negotiate over terms and conditions of their employment.   However, on the same day she claimed credit for expanding advocacy for county employees, she concurrently proposed to curtail the rights of self-expression for the rest of the county’s residents.   In a January 10 th memo, Chair Wheeler put forward several recommendations for limiting public comment at these meetings. Accompanying a January 12 th Inside NOVA article on the subject ( Changes upcoming for public comment at Prince William board meetings? | Headlines | insidenova.com ) were several uniformly negative online comments on these proposals, much like the ones Chair Wh...

  Remarks to the Warrenton Town Council: January 10, 2023 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville in Prince William County.   I’m here tonight to offer you sympathy, support and a warning: Be careful which camel’s nose you allow under your tent.   I see a lot of similarities in what you are considering tonight and what has been riding roughshod over Prince William for more than a year.   I even see some of the same players now plying their trade here in Warrenton. Due to the gothic horror story imposed upon the citizens of Prince William, I’ve watched your plight with interest and a sense of foreboding.   Are we all doomed to the same fate of being sacrificed on the altar of big tech’s insatiable appetite for land, power and water?   Are we all to be sold down the river by public servants who courted our trust on election day only to betray it afterward?   Is trust and transparency in government an antiquated concept that has fallen vict...

  Remarks at press conference prior to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors meeting of December 13, 2022 Tonight, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors will hold a public hearing and vote on the 2040 Comprehensive Plan and vision for the future of our county.  We know that public hearings are an annoying formality to this Board that has absolutely no interest in citizen input.  Shady deals cooked up long ago behind closed doors will be rubber stamped while disadvantaged county residents are left to spit into a wind of political indifference. Our current Board has a disconcerting practice of taking developer aspirations and passing them off as the county’s vision.   Developers have been eagerly awaiting such a compliant Board, and their Christmas lists have been duly delivered to Santa Wheeler.   She and her four obedient elves have been in the workshop folding that tainted input into the travesty you’ll see peddled tonight. It would be r...

  Remarks to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors: November 1, 2022 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville.   In case you missed it, I oppose the Prince William Digital Gateway.   So here we are.   After a year of presenting arguments and evidence, we are still awaiting your enlightenment.   I’m skeptical, but willing to be surprised.   There is still time to avoid a disastrous decision with irreversible consequences that will forever stain your legacy. There’s no point at this late hour of recounting the multitude of reasons why the Prince William Digital Gateway is a lousy idea.   You’ve read it in the media, in the opposition of dozens of non-partisan conservation groups, and heard it from numerous speakers in these chambers.   And the support for this lemon remains stalled at a few of you, and corporations and landowners who stand to profit from the deal.   That’s some consensus you’ve built. I have marveled at...

  Remarks to the Prince William Planning Commission: October 12, 2022 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville.   I oppose the conduct of the Planning Commission, specifically as demonstrated during your public hearings of September 14 th and 28 th . I am not complaining about a difference of opinion, which you are entitled to have.   I am taking issue with suppression of evidence, an abrogation of due process and a disregard for public input.   I also believe it is probable that your decision-making process is unduly affected by political considerations which override factual ones. On the subject of suppression of evidence, I supplied verifiable information to the commissioners and the Planning Office on multiple occasions that the county was reaching the upper limit of the forecasted demand for data centers without the Prince William Digital Gateway.   With Stack Infrastructure’s recent announcement to develop a total of four million square fee...

  Remarks to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors: October 11, 2022 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville.   I oppose the Prince William Digital Gateway.   In my brief time in Prince William County, I’ve come to the conclusion that our government needs a lot of remedial training.   But I’ll admit to one area where we are absolute world beaters.   Pitting neighbor against neighbor. East versus west, black versus white, Democrat versus Republican.   It’s hard to keep track of the division our elected leaders try to stoke and exploit as a means to advance their preferred program.   Insincerely feigning sympathy for one group while demonizing another must be some kind of market-tested strategy because it is employed repeatedly and in the most laughably transparent manner. You may think this provides cover for your true objectives but it really exposes your self-serving motives since the intended beneficiaries are yourselves, no...

  Remarks to the Prince William Planning Commission: September 28, 2022 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville.   I oppose the land use chapter update being pushed through in a single evening.   Your recommendation must be deferred until there is greater public understanding of what is being proposed.   Like maybe discuss it with affected residents. The Planning Commission should be smarting from the public rebuke it received for its sham hearing on the Prince William Digital Gateway just two weeks ago.   Have you learned anything from that experience?   Possibly not, because here we are again poised to quickly run extraordinarily impactful changes past an uninformed public. The land use chapter is an exhaustive document that the average citizen cannot possibly digest and review in a single evening.    It is too important and sweeping to be thoroughly understood and commented upon tonight.   A cursory review of this complex ...

  Remarks to the Prince William Planning Commission: September 21, 2022 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville.   I oppose the Prince William Digital Gateway and would like to lodge a complaint about your conduct of the September 14 th public hearing. Before the hearing convened, I approached the dais where Gainesville Commissioner Berry and Vice Chair McPhail were standing.   I handed them a copy of an e-mail I had previously sent to the Chair and the clerk that contained excerpts from the Planning Commission by-laws limiting the public comments of applicants during public hearings.   Despite this, a large number of applicants were permitted to speak, pre-empting the input of over 80 non-applicants, who were unable to remain until their opportunity came in early morning hours. The whole concept of who the applicant is became muddled.   The CPA application says it is Mary Ann Ghadban, who was also permitted to speak during what was supposed to b...

  Remarks to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors: September 20, 2022 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville.   I oppose the Prince William Digital Gateway.   Supervisors are perfectly entitled to disagree with me on the merits of this proposal.   What they are not entitled to do is stonewall legitimate citizen inquiries, suppress evidence, dismiss responsible precautions and otherwise use their influence to subvert what is supposed to be an impartial review process.   The applicants are entitled to advocate for their interests.   They are not entitled to collude with public officials, advertise improper proffers or present false motives to elicit public support. Any lingering doubt trusting souls might have had about how seriously impaired this CPA review process is went out the window with that comically pre-ordained Planning Commission public hearing.   Reason and judgme...

  Remarks to the Prince William Planning Commission: September 14, 2022 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville.   It’s time for closing arguments against the Prince William Digital Gateway.   There are too many unanswered questions. 1) Needlessness .   Prince William County already has more data center capacity operating or under development than the Camoin report said would be needed for the next twenty years.   Our government shamelessly withholds this information under the guise of non-disclosure agreements that place the greed of QTS and Compass above our citizens’ right to transparency. 2) Water Quality . The Fairfax County Planning Department, Fairfax Water Authority, the Prince William County Department of Public Works, the Prince William County Watershed Management Branch, the Washington Post and others have warned of the risks.   Our supervisors deny and deflect. 3) Noise .   Documented problems with excessive noise at Amazon...

  Remarks to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors: September 13, 2022 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville.   I oppose the Prince William Digital Gateway.   I am still trying to figure out how you do things here in Prince William County.   I lived in a number of places during my time in the Navy, but this place has me stumped. This is the first place I’ve known where the government seems to have declared war on its own citizens.   Normally you’d think that wasn’t a good long-term strategy, especially since elected officials depend on popular support to sustain them.   There must be some masochistic expectation that the people appreciate punishment.   More likely, some appreciate others being punished. How else can you justify the odd phenomenon practiced here, which I’ll call “revenge zoning”?   As it’s been explained to me, every so often those in power get to choose which region is due for a measure of civic vandali...

  Remarks to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors: August 2, 2022 My name is Bill Wright and I live in Gainesville.   I oppose the Prince William Digital Gateway.   Chair Wheeler has labeled those objecting to runaway data center development “opponents of progressive change”.   But being a shill for corporate raiders looking to exploit our community is not progressive.   It’s a self-serving sell-out and a con as old as time, and I’m proud to obstruct it. You’ve already read about her progressive conflict-of-interest principles. The Virginia Public Access Project shows that Chair Wheeler spent over $387,000 in her 2019 campaign, more than three times her nearest competitor and more than $6 per vote.   Now she’s actually fundraising off her constituents’ efforts to recall her.   Interesting marketing strategy. VPAP also shows that she and her family have contributed over $166,000 to her campaigns for Supervisor.   That’s an awful ...