Paid supporters & a recap of the August 12th City Council meeting
I don't really do these, but this meeting was so significant that I felt I needed to. I was considering doing a video recap, but I try to be mindful of spamming the subreddit.
For the past 3 months there have been protests at city hall because of the data centers, but this meeting was different. A week before the meeting on August 4th, someone anonymously emailed me and informed me that someone was sending their employees to the next city council meeting.
"Hello Sam and Sam's team,
A family member of mine is going to be at the next council meeting for the data centers on Aug 12th. Their boss told them to go and show up in support of the data center early by blocking seats from protestors. You'll probably need to be there by 5:30 to be ahead of them. I think they have over 60 people going to try and block you.
Sorry for the anonymous email, I don't want them to get in trouble, we all need to eat.
Best of luck, we're rooting for you."
I believed it, but was a bit skeptical. Come August 12th at the city council meeting, the whole lobby was full of people with "Yes to jobs" stickers on their shirts. It was a mix of people from Midsouth Mechanical, Prime Group and the Cobb Chamber of Commerce.
Speaking to some of my friends, it seems like they got there at 5PM, and the meeting starts at 7PM. There were so many of them, the lobby was standing room only. We all stood there in the lobby waiting until I believe 7:30PM, because the MHS football team was getting recognized.
After that the rest of us waiting in the lobby were let in by security who was checking bags and wanding people down for weapons, etc. Shortly after I get through, the council chambers reached maximum capacity.
The meeting kicks off with a speaker railing hard against DSA. Then something I'd never seen happen before came on the screen while he was speaking. For some reason as he was listing out what DSA believes the projector displayed the DSA platform. I guess we can request Audio Visual elements when we go up to speak? I found it highly unusual.
Then the next speaker came up and was asking for more transparency from the council regarding data centers, and I believe 2 more regular speakers came up and spoke on a myriad of issues.
Then we get into the data center discussion, which was the first thing on the agenda. The agenda said each side, pro and against, got 15 minutes to speak with a maximum of 3 minutes each. I believe only one Marietta resident got up and spoke for the pro side, and everyone else was either outside the city or on payroll. Something weird happened when the last pro side person spoke though. They had a clock on the wall with a timer letting people know the rest of your time for the side you were on, but the clock didn't hit 0 for the pro side (that's important for later). They ended the pro side comment regardless, but it wasn't an issue.
The anti side then gets up, with the first person speaking being Mary Frances Williams, the state house representative for House District 37. Speaker after speaker gets up, until we reach five speakers with the clock down to 3 minutes. The mayor and city attorney then say that you can only have 5 speakers per side. Mind you, this was not written down on the agenda or announced when the mayor opened the public hearing.
The room erupted with anger, with multiple people getting removed including one of the residents who lives near where the now approved data center is going to be built.
The mayor stands firm and closes the public hearing, and then all of the prime group employees get up to hash out a deal with the council. I believe the literal CEO of Prime Group was in attendance as well. They switch out people speaking to council based on which questions are asked, strategically trying to craft the best argument. At one point they even lie and say they weren't looking at multiple properties in Marietta, even though it was and as of writing still is on their website.
Councilwoman Cheryl Richardson, took up the bulk of the time grilling them and asking question after question about environmental impacts and sound. After they debate for 1hr+ they eventually call the vote. Councilman Goldstein calls the motion to approve and literally lists out like 20 stipulations regarding noise, environmental impacts, etc. I believe there was also a stipulation thrown in there by the mayor saying they can't develop the site they were looking at near Tumlin Park.
Side note, despite the vote of approval our advocacy got us real results. Those stipulations would not exist if we hadn't made noise about it.
Anyway, Almost all of the other council members and the mayor were silent the majority of the discussion. Once the motion is read out by Councilman Goldstein, they vote and the motion passes 5-2. The room again erupts in anger, with the crowd chanting "vote them out".
The rest of the meeting went off without a hitch, except for one other person protesting during another public comment unrelated to the data center and getting removed.
After all of the other agenda items were done, a few of us went up to speak for unscheduled appearances including myself.
I haven't been doing this for long in comparison to some of the people I know, but I have never seen a concerted effort to get something through with this much corporate backing behind it. There have been lots of "big money" votes, but nothing like this.
Pro or anti data center, the fact that Prime Group tried to drown out the voices of local residents is wrong, and I don't think that part of the story is being covered enough. Their project was so unpopular they astroturfed support for it and belittled resident's concerns.
It seems they got their wish.
TL;DR
There were paid supporters of the data center at the Marietta City Council meeting this august. The rules for public speaking at the meeting also made it unclear how many people were allowed to speak, creating more hostility with the public. The CEO of prime group was in attendance.