LETTER TO EDITOR

The Wheeler Distort: PW Digital Gateway Lies that Refuse to Die

Chair Wheeler disingenuous about 'facts' of Prince William Digital Gateway

Posted

Reader Opinion Piece

Chair Wheeler,

Today’s “Special Edition” of The Wheeler Distort is a monumental low that consolidates a year’s bounty from your baloney factory in a single tawdry document.  Since I don’t have an entire brow-beaten staff at my disposal, I can only address your most atrocious fantasies and misrepresentations. The full depth of your deceit is best captured in the first attachment.

Lies that refuse to die:

  • The continued charade of the County as the applicant for this proposal (attachments not necessarily in order):
    • The initial CPA application of May 7, 2021, listed Mary Ann Ghadban as an “authorized agent” on page 4 and “applicant” on page 13. 
    • Mary Ann Ghadban paid an application fee of $2,103.28 on June 2, 2021
    • Another attachment is a June 15, 2021 letter from the Prince William County Planning Office notifying Mary Ann Ghadban that “The full application packet with all hard copies was submitted to our office on Thursday, May 27, 2021.”
  • My third attachment is the BOCS resolution of July 20, 2021, initiating the CPA.  Mary Ann Ghadban is listed at the bottom as an “authorized agent”.  The accompanying staff report (too large to attach) made numerous references to the applicant without ever meaning the County.
  • How were county residents made aware that they had been co-opted as proponents of this CPA which devoted county resources to advance a private business proposal by wealthy landowners and multi-billion dollar corporations?
  • The contention of no other suitable land available for data center development:
    • The map below and the fourth attachment show the extent of data center development in Prince William County that you and your staff refuse to acknowledge.
    • The first table below is from a county-solicited report produced by Camoin Associates that forecast the highest level of projected demand for data center capacity for the next twenty years to be 48,000,000 square feet.
    • The second table below shows the total data center capacity currently operating or already under development to be over 49,000,000 square feet without the Prince William Digital Gateway.
    • Why are you inexplicably wed to the Prince William Digital Gateway?  What is your rationale for exceeding forecast demand by such a large margin when there is such unprecedented public opposition?
    • This blatant lie has been disproven so many times it would be comical if it were not peddled by an elected official determined to pull the wool over the eyes of a misinformed public.  Your shame knows no bounds.
    • Review the fourth through sixth attachments and the map and tables below:
  • Your completely disingenuous feint at concerns for water quality: 
    • Why are fourteen conservation groups calling out your railroading of the CPA review process in the seventh attachment?
    • Why did Fairfax County feel compelled to recently reiterate its previous warnings to you about conducting a water study before approving the Prince William Digital Gateway?
    • The map below makes the threat to the Occoquan reservoir posed by the Prince William Digital Gateway quite evident.

Your reprehensible conduct in the hijacking of this CPA review process transcends any simple policy differences.  It has revealed numerous character flaws which render you unfit for public office.  You are a stain on the Democratic brand in Prince William County and it is the civic duty of our citizens to remove you from office at the earliest opportunity.

Bill Wright

Charismatic Way

Gainesville

wawright4@comcast.net

This article references:

  • Data Show Prince William County is on Track to Overtake Loudoun in Data Center Development by Peter Cary, Piedmont Journalism Foundation, Prince William Times, May 12, 2022
  • Tracking the spread of data centers in Prince William County, By Christopher Stern, Fauquier Times, October 25, 2022

  • HOA Roundtable letter to Chair Ann Wheeler, Oct. 28, 2022
  • Ghadban CPA initiation letter, June 15, 2021
  • Prince William Board of County Supervisors Res. No. 21-445, July 20, 2021
  • Conservation Letter to Prince William Board of County Supervisors, Oct. 28, 2022
  • Fairfax County Letter to the Prince William County Planning Department, regarding "Pathway 2040," Oct. 24, 2022

Wheeler Distort, Ann Wheeler, Chair Wheeler, Bill Wright, Nov. 1, vote, Board of County Supervisors, Prince William Digital Gateway, PW Digital Gateway, data center, data center development