By: Lydia Crawley, The Parsons Advocate
The State has essentially tied the hands of local officials with House Bill 2014 when it comes to data centers coming to and operating in the Tucker County area, Tucker County Commission President Mike Rosenau said. The statement came as part of public comment during the Tucker County Commission’s regular session April 9th. During the session, members of the public were on hand to voice their concerns over Virginia based company Fundamental Data’s plans to build a power plant and data center between Davis and Thomas near the County’s landfill.
“We’ve voiced our concerns to everyone who will listen,” Rosenau said.
Tucker County resident Nathan Sander said that he had only learned of the proposed project in the past week to week and a half and has tried to educate himself to the best of his ability with what little information on the project has been available. It was a sentiment shared by both the public and officials at the meeting. Rosenau said that he, too only learned of the project in the time frame.
“We came to implore you guys to exert whatever control you all have on State officials, whomever, whatever can be done on behalf of the community, on behalf of Tucker County and West Virginia,” Sander said.
Sander discussed the issue with tax revenue generated by the center. Under HB 2014, as it was passed by the State House, no tax revenue would go to the local governments, only the State, Rosenau said.
“The fact is Senate Bill 2014 passed the House of Representatives as it stood,” Rosenau said. “Which would mean there would be no tax revenue coming to the County. There would be no County, any type of influence, any type of zoning, any type of ordinance, anything we could do. Nothing could be placed, the State would have full control.”
Rosenau encouraged those at the meeting to follow the proceedings on the State Senate floor and to contact State elected officials on HB 2014. The County Commission had print outs available for the public with contact information of all House and Senate members for the public to contact on the issue and made it known that they have been in contact with as many members as they could on the issue to let them know Tucker County’s stance on the matter.
“The administrator ran off all the information for the House side and the Senate side,” Rosenau said. “So individuals can contact their offices if they choose to, to voice your concerns because all of this is on the State level.”
Rosenau said his main concerns on the issue are the lack of local input. Rosenau also said he did not like the State taking all the revenue from the local governments.
“The thing that I don’t like about the whole scenario is, is the way it passed the House is, we get no revenue at all to our County,” Rosenau said. “We have no say in anything where it can be located, where it can’t be located, any of that. I’ve got an issue with that. Those are the problems I really have with it is there is really no local input into this decision.”
However, Rosenau said that on the Senate side there had already been amendments made to the Bill, but did not give any specifics on them. Rosenau said that it was still too early to say whether he was for or against the amendments or whether the amendments would even stay in the Bill. According to Rosenau, the bill would likely be in and out of committee several times in the Senate prior to passage depending on the number of amendments that the Bill would encounter.
“Its too early to even say whether I’m for that amendment, I’m against that amendment or what the end result will even be,” Rosenau said.
Rosenau said he understands property rights and the rights of property owners to do what they will with their own property, but this project is different because it has widespread implications to the entirety of the Tucker County area. “I understand this is their property, just like its your property,” Rosenau said. “But this is different, this affects our entire County.”
The County has no deed transfers recorded for the proposed property for the project as of the morning of the meeting, according to County Clerk Sherry Simmons. The property is currently owned by Western Pocahontas, according to Rosenau.
Resident Debbie Hatfield also voiced concerns during the meeting. Hatfield asked if there was more the Commission could do at the State level to make Tucker County voices heard. According to Hatfield, she felt that the residents would not be heard or taken as seriously as the Commissioners would.
Rosenau said that he and the other Commissioners had been in contact with Charleston on the issue repeatedly and that Tucker County needed to be a united voice on the issue. Rosenau said that both the Commission and the residents needed to be heard in Charleston in order to make a difference.
“I think that its important that the public both within the County and across the State recognize because this hasn’t even really made it onto the State news,” Hatfield said. “People across the State, we as residents of the County are just beginning to hear about it, the State residents don’t know about it.”
The West Virginia legislature had a deadline of midnight on Saturday, April 12th to conclude all business, meaning that HB 2014 would need to be passed by the Senate prior to midnight on Saturday to be made into law. With the rapid deadline and no local forewarning, local officials only learned of the project with less than two weeks to contact State officials to object to HB 2014. Data centers and HB 2014 are intrinsically tied together as HB 2014 includes language explicitly designed to pertain to build and bring data centers to West Virginia.
