Don Shaw near his Gainesville home.Don Shaw, who intends to run as the Democratic Candidate for Delegate from Virginia’s 13th District, criticized Del. Bob Marshall (R, VA-13) Wednesday for writing to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on behalf of his district.
Last week, Marshall wrote to the Amazon CEO to tell him that if Amazon plans on moving a data center into Prince William County, it should steer away from the Rural Crescent and instead locate to Innovation Park, which is a more industrial area of the western end of the county.
Shaw criticized Marshall on a blogpost on his site, “Don Shaw for Delegate,” saying that is no way to court businesses desiring to locate into the county.
Because of community feedback, Delegate Marshall and Senator Black sent a letter to Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon with "my way or the highway" veiled threats. While starting the letter by telling Mr. Bezos that they're not against "the presence of an Amazon data center," they quickly shifted to a discussion of the way Disney was forced to abandon its plans for locating in Prince William in response to "sustained adverse publicity from concerned citizens." As a member of the business community, I can tell you that this is not an effective approach if you want to attract companies to your area.
Shaw explains in his post that he too opposes high voltage power lines running through the county’s Rural Crescent, but he does not blame Bezos. Rather, he is highly critical of current county leadership, saying they have failed to provide a vision for the future of the county.
The lack of a vision for our area has caused us to wander from crisis to crisis rather than to systematically address the issues we face in our community. From the congestion on our roads and highways to an ever-increasing property tax burden, to our crowded school classrooms, we find ourselves putting out fires instead of building our future. Rather than proactively working to improve the quality of life for residents, Delegate Bob Marshall has been on a quixotic two-decade quest to slay ideological dragons while neglecting the real concerns of his constituents.
Read Shaw’s full post here.
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