Our local government of Wise County, Virginia is quietly clearing the path for the data center industry to take over our region's land, water, and power grid. Instead of protecting the community, officials are fast-tracking agreements behind closed doors using aggressive legal clauses like "time is of the essence" to rush these projects through before the public can react.

Worse, when citizens ask for transparency and demand to see standard introductory documents like Letters of Intent, we are met with deflections and handed binding "Option Agreements" instead.

A temporary pause is no longer enough. We cannot give a blank check to an industry that demands millions of gallons of water and massive energy infrastructure. We demand that our local governing bodies completely refuse development rights, zoning variations, and infrastructure access to hyper-scale data centers. We are drawing a permanent line in the sand to protect our future, our resources, and our right to a transparent government.