The Botetourt Data Center & the Lie of Freedom
“The Story of America Makes Everyone Free” proclaims whitehouse.gov on the same page disclosing the creation of a public-private partnership, “Freedom 250,” tasked with “engaging all levels of government, the private sector, non-profit and educational institutions, and every citizen across the country to celebrate [the 250th anniversary].”
What is the substance of this freedom? And why are we meant to celebrate it with the encouragement of a public-private partnership of all things?
It is common to distinguish between negative and positive freedom—between freedom from interference and personal or popular sovereignty—but let’s keep things simple and concrete here. Do the people of Botetourt have a say in what is done in the county? Can they recruit local government to protect them from foreign corporations? The reference to public-private partnerships provides a clue to the answer.
I recently heard Iain Davis describe public-private partnerships as “inverted fascism.” Fascism of course involved the marriage of government and corporations. Theoretically at least, under fascism, the government retained the “whip hand” says Davis, but things are reversed with public-private partnerships: these are funded and authorized by government, but then possess independent agency. We have seen an instance of this already in the Water Authority. The Commonwealth authorized, and Roanoke created, the Water Authority, but now it can do with our water whatever it pleases, without redress, and without duty to any of the counties it services. Power companies operate on the same model, under authority of an almost identical statutory structure.
That the water and power monopolies, and Google, are corporations irresponsible to the public is plain. On examination, local governance in the Commonwealth is not much better. To get a handle on county government in Botetourt, you may start with Title 15.2, Subtitle II, Chapter 12, and Title 2.2, Subtitle II, Subpart B, Chapter 37 of the Code of Virginia.
The two chief nods to popular government here are county elections and public hearings. Va. Code § 2.2-3707 provides that meetings of public bodies are to be open, but provides significant exceptions to this rule. You can find 56 such exceptions in Va. Code § 2.2-3711.
The safeguard to these secret proceedings is, presumably, that if criminal or otherwise harmful plans were discussed, then a member of the board could blow the whistle. Botetourt was wise to this danger of public transparency however, and had each supervisor sign non-disclosure agreements, not only on behalf of Google, but on behalf of the board itself.
What’s hidden by the Botetourt Board of Supervisors stays hidden, that is until the disclosure mandated by Va. Code § 2.2-3711(B):
“B. No resolution, ordinance, rule, contract, regulation or motion adopted, passed or agreed to in a closed meeting shall become effective unless the public body, following the meeting, reconvenes in open meeting and takes a vote of the membership on such resolution, ordinance, rule, contract, regulation, or motion that shall have its substance reasonably identified in the open meeting.”
But there’s an answer to that too. What you do, is schedule a special joint meeting of the Board of Supervisors and Planning and Zoning, and make sure to set it 2 days before the Thanksgiving holiday (November 26, 2024). Oh, and provide only two weeks’ notice of the vaguest description. This allows you to effect a rezoning and a change to the county’s very law—in a fraction of the time it would take an ordinary citizen to get a mere special use permit—with minimal public scrutiny or awareness. Even better, if you manage to slip this by, county residents only have 30 days to object pursuant to Va. Code § 15.2-2285.
Residents of Botetourt have very little agency in these affairs. The best they can do, if they manage to get notice of these proceedings, is to show up and scream—but the board is not required to pay any attention. They can, I suppose, vote the board out at the next election, but the data center contract purports to bind all successor boards of supervisors.
This is all very much by design, and is perfectly consistent with the public-private partnership model of government with which we began. Government authorizes and funds, corporations do as they like for profit, and citizens look on in impotent dismay.
I will accept Trump’s claim that “The Story of America Makes Everyone Free,” only if history is understood to be, as Herzen had it, “the autobiography of a madman.”
Also in this series:
If It’s Not Love, Then It’s the Data Center That Will Bring Us Together
The Botetourt Data Center: A Bad Deal with a Scammy Cherry on Top
The Botetourt Data Center, The Water Authority, and an Invitation to Corruption