Some who sit on economic development boards and committees still do not seem to understand why people are angry.
People are tired of being asked to pay for projects that mostly benefit people who are already rich. We are tired of seeing public money, public land, public water, public infrastructure, and public power capacity treated like resources corporations are entitled to claim.
Then we are told it is economic development.
For who?
Families are dealing with low wages, bad healthcare, high rent, expensive groceries, and rising power bills. Meanwhile, some of the wealthiest corporations in the world are offered tax incentives, public infrastructure, subsidies, and resources ordinary people could never expect to receive.
Southwest Virginia has been through this before. Our communities have repeatedly been asked to provide land, labor, resources, and sacrifice while outside interests control the decisions, take the profits, and leave local communities carrying the costs.
Data centers can generate local tax revenue but Wise County and the other Lonesome Pine RIFA localities tax data center equipment at only 24 cents per $100 of assessed value, with a favorable depreciation schedule. Wise County promotes it as the lowest regional rate of its kind in Virginia. Before that revenue is held up as the payoff, the public deserves to know what remains after the reduced rate, depreciation, additional incentives, and publicly funded infrastructure or utility costs. Those benefits should be binding commitments.
Corporate investment is a business deal. Companies expect a return, and the public should demand one too.
Every time one of these major projects is proposed, we hear the same sales pitch.
Jobs.
We have learned to ask better questions.
How many jobs will be permanent and local? How many will exist only during construction or somewhere else in the supply chain? How many will pay enough to support a family, and how much public money will be spent for each permanent job?
What happens after the ribbon is cut and the corporation no longer needs a meaningful workforce?
That is where the sales pitch should end and binding guarantees should begin.
Promised jobs should come with enforceable requirements for permanent positions, wages, deadlines, local hiring, public reporting, and consequences for broken promises. When jobs are counted, tell us how many are permanent, construction, or supply-chain jobs and where they are.
AI data centers expose a larger contradiction. Communities are told to count jobs created by building, supplying, and operating the infrastructure, while corporations are told the same technology will automate work, reduce labor costs, eliminate positions, and make more profit with fewer workers.
If a project creates few permanent jobs locally while supporters count supply-chain jobs elsewhere, and the technology itself is being used to eliminate jobs throughout the economy, that belongs in the public discussion. Communities deserve more than an inflated job number in a press release. They deserve to know the deal before they are asked to live with it.
Residents should not accept vague promises while projects develop in secrecy, the public is locked out, and commitments may already be taking shape. They are entitled to know who negotiated a project, who was paid to represent or promote it, what was promised, and what public resources are committed. Public trust does not begin after corruption is proved. It starts with disclosure.
Public input must come before commitments are made, incentives are negotiated, land-use decisions are advanced, or public infrastructure is promised. People should not be brought into the process after a project has been treated as inevitable.
Legitimate trade secrets can be protected without hiding a project’s existence, scale, location, water and power demands, tax treatment, public costs, or obligations to the community. Confidentiality should be narrow and temporary, not a way to shape decisions before the public knows what is being considered.
Officials may mean well. Good intentions are not public accountability. They cannot replace independent analysis, public records, binding agreements, and meaningful public participation before commitments are made.
People are tired of being billed, tracked and ignored.
Public money should not expand surveillance without meaningful public consent or clear protections. License plate readers, camera networks, data-sharing agreements, and private surveillance contracts should not be slipped into communities as routine line items.
Tracking movement of citizens is a rights issue. The public deserves to know what is collected, who can access it, how long it is kept, how it can be shared, and what legal standard governs its use.
Our personal information should not be a commodity for somebody else’s profit.
No project should put our water at risk so a corporation can operate more servers, force ratepayers to absorb higher electricity costs, or make property owners gamble their property values or quality of life without a meaningful voice. Our communities should not provide the resources, carry the risks, and pay the bills while somebody else collects the profits.
Economic development should make life better for the people who already live here. It should mean livable wages, affordable and reliable power, clean water, responsible use of public resources, and benefits that remain in the community after the ribbon is cut.
Before any major project moves forward, the public should know its full cost and likely impact: environmental effects, water source and use, power demand, infrastructure, subsidies, tax incentives, privacy and safety risks, property values, quality of life, permanent jobs, benefits, local hiring guarantees, and public spending. It should also know who profits, who carries the risks, and who pays when promises fail.
Any project seeking public resources, cooperation, or sacrifice should be required to answer these questions openly before the public is asked to accept it.
If a project is truly good for the people who live here, it can survive public scrutiny.
If it cannot survive public scrutiny, that says it all.
The people who live here are often treated as an afterthought while the deals are shaped and the commitments are made without them. Our land, water, power, taxes, privacy, and future are put on the line while outside interests take the profits and local people are left with the costs, risks, and consequences.
The people who live here should stop being treated as an afterthought. Any project that asks us to put our resources, our money, or our future on the line must answer to us before commitments are made, not after the public is already stuck with the consequences.
Enough is enough.
Chris Brooks is a Southwest Virginia resident and vice chair of the Wise County and City of Norton Democratic Committee. His civic work focuses on economic development, government transparency, and public participation in decisions affecting the region. He also serves as a team leader with Virginia Organizing’s Wise County Chapter. The views expressed are his own.
