Residents of Harmony, 

‘I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.’
~ Bilbo Baggins

This is the iconic opening line of Bilbo’s birthday speech on his eleventy-first birthday in the Shire (Lord of the Rings). Unfortunately, the subject of this petition gives us no reason to celebrate anything, much less a birthday in a fictional world. I still think, however, that it applies as there are many of you that I do not know and some that I should know more about. 
As some of you do already know, however, my name is Brianna. My small, young family of three has only lived here for a couple years, but we love our small town. We value the quietness of this rural area and the community-oriented character of Harmony. Our church is located here as well and the community that we’ve helped build therein is indispensable to us. However, our hopes were a bit crushed when we heard of the plans for this data center in our town. And we started to fear for our future and the future of Harmony. 

Dear People of Harmony, I want you to know that this town is so much more than just empty land waiting for development. This town offers historical character, quiet Amish tourism, family farms, and your small-town atmosphere. These things have value in and of themselves and shouldn’t be taken from us. This data center development does not fit this criteria for our community and should not be here. If Harmony becomes known as a place for large-scale industrial or technological infrastructure, what kinds of future projects will follow? 
The Amish community contributes significantly to the unique character and identity of Harmony. If this data facility is constructed what then? What will become of the individuality of this town? If a large-scale technology-oriented development is built is that compatible with preserving the qualities and environment that make Harmony distinct? And what’s more, will it end with only the data center? And that’s not even to mention all the technical and financial difficulties that affect the surrounding area of these centers. I highly encourage you to look into those yourselves. 

Please, Friend, help this endeavor to stop this data center and sign our petition! We will show this to our City Council members who are currently working on the ‘how’ to approve of this facility, but never asked about the alignment of it. We must not allow the personality of this community that we’ve built to ‘vanish’ like Bilbo Baggins did at the end of his speech! 

With all due sincerity, 

Brianna, a fellow resident of Harmony