I listened to the council meeting last night. The biggest concern was Bill 20 which concerns the approval of data center ordinance language to the code. Mainly a data center on Emaus Ave was the building in discussion.
There was a strong presence from the community begging council not to vote for data centers instead to vote for a currative amendment which would allow 180 days halt to allow for amendments to the implementation of data centers.
What we do know is that communities who have these data centers have seen increases in electricity bills, water bills, and impact on health and safety. Additionally there are noise and a slew of other complaints.
I can see Frank and the Mayor's office wants the data centers. I am sure for Tuerk there is pressure for him to get this done.
I really think this vote defined the word politics. Meaning, the vote was influenced by higher entities with deep pockets.
Councilperson Mota complained in previous meetings and reiterated tonight that she did not want these centers in her back yard, and basically stated she was against them. Then she voted down the currative amendment and yes for bill 20.
The reality is the data centers are coming. There is way too much money behind them. These companies have endless money to fight the city to get what they want.
However, I think council should have opted for the currative amendment to atleast give them some time to try and strengthen the bill. Pressure and fear casted their votes.
Bill 20 passed 4-2. Gerlach and Santos the only yes votes for the currative amendment.
And Napoli needs a button to mute people when they get out of order (and he doesnt control the meeting) or go past there alloted time limit or a trap door.
It was painful watching all these people go say the same thing for hours. Also some of them were saying the dumbest shit.
Also two other news worthy items
Today there was almost a 3rd teen homicide in what 3 weeks? A 14 year old girl was stabbed almost to death. Wtf is with these kids?
Where is Promise Neighborhoodz? They get all this money and what is the result? Nodda.
2nd
Conveniently, the audio failed at the county council meeting tonight. The big discussion of the "Wealth Tax" trying to be imposed on all people who work in the county. Greedy fuckers.
☆☆☆☆Added June 18th 5:15pm.
I am going to predict the next data center. Across from Parkettes, where the homeless camp was. Thats why Tuerk pushed them out. Huge warehouse going in and its right aside of the lehigh and jordan rivers.
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54 comments:
Abe… was the sound on when you watched our meeting? We spent hours and hours making the point that no one “wants” data centers, but the PA municipal planning code forces us, and all jurisdictions, to allow for the use.
Bill 20 provides some safeguards, better vetting, environmental review, introduces setbacks… and we will begin increasing those safeguards and protections as soon as next week.
There was no option that included a pause on applications. If Council had voted for the 180 day municipal curative amendment, Allentown would have had no protections at all for data centers applying in the interim.
City Council made the wise decision to actually begin to protect this community starting tomorrow rather than do what would have been easy but misguided.
Every person that testified as an expert in the area of planning said the same thing.. enact bill 20 to institute safeguards now and then start strengthening them next week.
You should turn the sound on and watch the video again.
Do we still have people in public office afraid to be called a racist? Maybe they haven’t been told that same charge no longer has any effect on 90 % of all Americans. The old ‘he’s a racist, she’s a racist, you’re a racist’ charge has been used so many times in the past it now goes in one ear and right out the other for the great majority of Americans. Race-baiters desperately need to find new material to keep their thing going. They’ve made themselves irrelevant to logical thinking adults.
For the uninformed or if you want to go back to the stone ages: 🗿
….as society becomes increasingly dependent on digital services:
Data Centers
1. They Power the Modern Economy
Almost every online activity relies on data centers:
* Banking transactions
* Healthcare records
* Emergency communications
* Cloud computing
* Video streaming
* E-commerce
* Artificial intelligence
Without data centers, many essential services would not function.
2. Economic Development and Jobs
Data centers create:
* Construction jobs during development
* Skilled technical positions for operations and maintenance
* Local tax revenue
* Opportunities for contractors, electricians, HVAC specialists, security personnel, and network engineers
While staffing levels are lower than manufacturing facilities, the jobs tend to be well-paying and highly skilled.
3. Support for AI and Innovation
The growth of AI, scientific research, cybersecurity, and advanced computing requires massive computing infrastructure. Data centers enable:
* Medical research
* Weather forecasting
* Emergency management systems
* Public safety communications
* Technological innovation
As someone familiar with mission-critical and control room environments, you’ll recognize that many emergency operations centers, 911 systems, and critical infrastructure monitoring platforms depend on data center resources.
👉🏻
There is a long, long list much longer than this. Data centers are coming and Allentown politicians are bought and paid for already.
Mota wants to be Mayor. Hypocrit Tuerk 2.0!
You can say what you want about Natalie and CeCe but they never go against the public. Probably because they're not bought and paid for. Check the Finance Reports of those who actually file one.
Data Centers are perfect for Allentown, it's practically the only use where all the negatives of Allentown are meaningless (poor schools, high crime, high taxes, low quality of life). Plus, land is cheaper in Allentown and the developers get to run their plans by less sophisticated and more incompetent elected officials and staffs than in the suburbs. Given the high tax valuations for data centers, I could see Allentown becoming a regional data center hub, possibly converting a lot of vacant brownfield sites into tax generating properties again.
The same NIMBY lunatics who screamed about reducing nuclear and coal power generation are now upset that the cost of electricity has gone up. Now these same lunatics don't want data centers because the lunatic narrative is that "data centers bad". Cool, Ok. Unplug bitches. Get rid of your smart phones and your tablets and disconnect from the internet. Live in your NIMBY village and ONLY do business with local merchants. No more trips to Costco/Sams/Walmart to buy cheap stuff in bulk. No more Amazon orders. No more streaming content either. Watch the few channels that are broadcast by antenna. No TikTok, Instagram, etc. These are all data center driven. Back to the 80s for you so that you can do your part to reduce the demand for data centers.
Shout out to Frank for stopping by to join the chat. Super impressive.
Last night’s meeting was crazy. It just goes to show that most of the public doesn’t listen to the logical arguments and just goes off of passion. It’s seemed like 90% of them couldn’t comprehend that the city can’t just outright ban data centers and wouldn’t be happy unless they did so. The only point I would make is, perhaps some members on city council should tone down their hatred of data centers and just reserve their comments. I am 100% sure that at some point, a data center will appeal a ruling by the zoning board with their newly creating zoning laws passed by city council, at which point they will play all the publicly available footage of council members talking about how they’d do anything to ban data centers and how they want to make it virtually impossible for them to be able to abide by zoning laws. Data center lawyers will have a field day with that. It would be like a jury publicly stating that they can’t wait to find a person guilty before the actual trial. I was also happy to see city council introduce an ordinance to do a financial analysis of the drop etc. I went back and watched the last meeting where Verizon Frank said the drop would only add 3-5 million a year (because no one is really sure). So Allentown is alright with spending 15-25 million after the first five years solely to implement the drop? Sounds absolutely ridiculous. I’m glad council is doing the fiscally responsible thing and calling the police to the carpet and exposing this cash grab and not just signing off on it like previous councils would.
Too many American citizens are uninformed, lazy, and weak in character. They will quickly join in to the latest FAD. You see, they WANT so much to be part of the crowd. Standing out on their own scares them. It’s the same motivation that made possible the ridiculous No Kings demonstrations. It’s the anti-ICE crowd, the all gun owners are dangerous group. But, nothing really tops the anti-anything-related-to-Trump crowd.
Right now, it’s trendy to speak out about data centers. Even though most detractors have no idea about the true purpose/benefit of present data centers, nor current need to create more.
Agree with both comments. Remember when the same environmental people were telling us that the 5G towers would give us all brain cancer within a year? It made me laugh when one of the environmental detractors pulled out his cell phone to read his speech. All of these people find their information on the internet, where there is just as much info on why data centers are needed and not a hindrance to the community but they choose to ignore that. It’s pretty simple, data centers are needed. Not just for AI which is the biggest talking point, but for virtually everything we do online everyday such as banking, hospital records etc. Data centers need to be near populous areas so there is infrastructure to maintain them and close to high speed data lines. I read an analogy the other day which explains it perfectly. Everyone agrees they need their cars. However no one likes gas stations because of their smell, bright lights, undesirables late at night. Yet we don’t argue to put all of them in the middle of nowhere. They need to be near the populated areas that need them. It’s the same thing with data centers if people would do one iota of non biased research.
Frank 1st stfu. How you gonna disrespect me being up at 1:48am writing on my blog when you start work at 8am? 2nd how can anyone trust a word you say. You babble on and blatently lie about something every meeting. You want me to point em out, I can. Fact checking you would be fun. In fact I can do a whole post on it. The fact is the amendments you claim will happen next week, won't. Prove me wrong. I want to be wrong on this one. I think the smart move was to stall atleast 30 or 60 days and implement safeguards. You know the favorite word of you and the mayors administration. STALL. Never give answers, respond with "I'll get back to you" "I dont have that answer" or my favorite when your showing up for a specific meeting "I have the info, but I dont trust it." You are only an expert on bullshitting and it is showing more and more. Go find your phone, your wasting valuable data storage by not being able to use it. Can you hear me now??
Why does Mr.Kane feel the need to justify all of his actions after every council meeting 🤔?
the city maintains two of its own data centers, they’re small but maybe we could use them to run local AI models? i think the problem is just that no one wants leviathans. covid taught us that our systems are incredibly fragile. the time to distribute our infrastructure is now!
Mota is an embarrassment. She went from deeply concerned to approving the bill in a span of 4 hours. All four who voted along with the administration on bill 20 should be ashamed. They will pay politically. The administration has a 3yr expiration date so they are irrelevant.
* Mota is a sellout and probably got something in exchange for her vote.
* Pungo voted for his boss. Data Center construction means potential business for Butz.
* Binder is a huge disappointment
* Napoli is the mayor’s pet
maybe he believes in the value of public comment in what is essentially a small public forum?
Frank. I appreciate that the administration is responding to this obviously sensitive subject of data centers in this community. It was very obvious last night that this community is passionate about them and is looking to our city leadership to place many controls and barriers in the code to make Allentown unattractive to a data center developer.
I hold you to your word that the administration is starting the conversation immediately to create strict zoning rules to protect Allentown.
We will be watching and will be attending all meetings to make sure we are heard and respected in the process.
The ball is in your court. I hope the corrupt mayor is aligned with your statements. He has secretly squashed legislation behind the scenes previously while publicly supporting. Kinda like Cynthia Mota the eternal sellout.
She will NEVER be mayor if she keeps throwing the people she serves under the bus for her personal gain
Not if the scum of the earth Matt Tuerk has anything to do with it. He will probably entice them with no taxes for 50 years in exchange for a generous campaign contribution and a pair of sneakers.
I appreciate that Frank comments. Not all he says I agree with or would say makes any sense, but it says a lot.
I do think it is sad that abe decided to to attack Frank over his 1st amendment right.
This is one of the biggest issues we face in our country right now. People don’t like when others have a differing opinion and immediately attack. I respect all opinions and have even changed my views after intelligent discussion.
Not cool. I value your first amendment rights is your blog statement. Is there an amendment to that? “As long they don’t differ from my own viewpoint”
I don’t trust or agree with most of what the administration is saying or doing but I do support Frank having an equal opportunity to speak without being told to shut up.
I agree with Abe, STFU Frank. Another answer you love to give is "I'm new so idk", we've heard you say that a million times. Allentown's government is reactive, why don't you try putting something forward that is proactive? And while we're at it, the City's website is full of AI slop, so hopefully someone proposes a data center in yours and the mayor's backyards.
Anon 9:46 said: “It just goes to show that most of the public doesn’t listen to the logical arguments and just goes off of passion. It’s seemed like 90% of them couldn’t comprehend…”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
You just described the democrat voting base on the national level, who are the same ones that put these same politicians in power every election in Allentown.
Regarding the recent stabbing, I hope the Mayor will be coming out with a statement to “End Knife Violence”!
Hopefully Promise Neighborhoods can blow some taxpayer dough on bright orange T-shirts saying that as well.
I also want to know if the person who committed the stabbing called Matt first to have a conversation. If not, why not?
Frank is jeopardizing himself working for a corrupt Mayor. When Matt’s term expires Frank will be looking for a new job.
Let's hope so.
Oh i get it. Mayor goes to stupid AI conference, gets council members bought, then Frank will claim data centers bring in billions of dollars to the city.
5:12 - I thought millions and millions of new dollars would be created by the NIZ scheme. Well, that failed big time, so maybe the city brain trust is seeking out something else. They really should try UFC fights every night. Oh, wait, we kinda have that now.
Anon 1:08 - I’m pretty sure that Frank doesn’t have a First Amendment right to post here. It’s Abe’s blog, and he can call it as he sees it.
BTW, telling someone to STFU isn’t attacking someone’s First Amendment rights, it’s merely telling them to, well, STFU.
Most importantly, the First Amendment was created to prevent government from limiting the speech of the citizens, not to give government officials more access and power over ANY viewpoint or discussion.
Honest Abe: I've been reviewing the comments today and your column has generated great dialog. Thanks for allowing anonymous posters to express their opinions without fear of persecution. I wanted to add 2 points to the dialog. First the debate is so similar to the warehouse debates in the suburbs, uninformed residents demanding denial of uses required by state law to be permitted by right. Of course Allentown, like everyone else, must allow for data centers. Voting down the ordinance welcome automatic approvals of them anywhere in the City with no protective provisions. Secondly, requiring approval through special exception by the zoning board is pure politics. This provision keeps decision making out of the hands of elected officials through a conditional use process. Now the zoning board gets stuck approving these data centers and their member are appointed by the Mayor. I'd feel a little more comfortable with elected officials making decisions on data centers instead of the zoning board who appointed by and may be taking orders from a Mayor
Them orange shirts were donated by Reilly and the other downtown guy, I think that might have been the big Don Cunilingwist were he appointed himself above Jennings inc.
I don’t think data centers will bring in billions. I think we are forced to create the opportunity to locate them and we had better do EVERYTHING we can to make sure they are subject to as many checks and balances as possible
Sorry to offend, Abe. You can’t fault me for thinking that a guy who pokes fun at everybody else can take a joke.
You will never catch me in a lie. Because the one thing that you can’t do in a position like mine is lie. You may not like what I say or how I say it, or I may not know something, but I will never lie. I learned that young and it stuck with me.
I am glad we are on the same page about the amendments. We are hard at work, together with city council, in working sessions that start Monday, to craft those amendments and present them on Wed the 24th. It WILL happen. It’s very important to all of us. These meetings are already scheduled. We already had a CED committee scheduled.
I am sorry if my use of humor diminishes the integrity of this ethical and serious publication, but the reality is that what you saw last night was the best in good government. There was no mechanism available to us that would have halted applications. The best we could do is what we did. We will propose some amendments on 5/24 to take into account new developments and public comments and the whole exercise will have been a microcosm of good government in action.
We don’t have to be adversaries. You are a guy who writes a blog about the City, and I am a guy who is happy to correct the record when I think I can help. I kind of thought we were getting to be friends.
We can still mend fences.
And hey, we still have two weeks of Pride left, maybe the next pic is you and me looking longingly into each other’s eyes on the stairs… it’s up to you.
Abe you asked what is wrong with these kids? It's not the kids it's the generational trauma and indignities heaped upon BIPOC bodies by European colonizers since 1492. When a man like Cristobal Columbus is celebrated with a giant bronze statue and national holiday we are messaging that might makes right and in order to succeed in life you just dominate and subjugate your fellow humans.
Furthermore 40 acres and a mule was the original big lie, until we have full reparations plus interest blood will flow, put up or shut up and let Dr. Batts do his thing without such slanderous, venomous, vitriol it's just wrong. Returning citizen marginalization contributes massively to high recidivism, do better Abe
Your Photoshop of Mayor Matt wearing an LGBTQIA2S+ pin while in the embrace of another man is an attempt to humiliate him with the perceived taint of homosexuality. There's a special place in hell for bigots like you Abe!
Can't tell if this is intentional hyperbole, or just moronic drivel.
Don't try to be cunning Lingo . Better check with Candida and Matty before making outrageous public commentary. You're welcome.
Bigot shmigot. That photo of McPronouns and his lunatic flag pin parodies his ridiculous virtue signaling. The warm hug from The Frank is funny. Humor is seriously lacking in the ranks of lunacy masquerading as advocates for social justice. The perpetual outrage is exhausting to witness.
Now take The Frank for instance. Super funny and self-deprecating to boot. The world has way too many people who take themselves way too seriously. If you don't like the memes then don't visit the blog.
"The best in good government" at Allentown??? That's a ridiculous statement. Let's not forget the Mayor bragging about "the most progressive Zoning Ordinance in Pennsylvania". He was way more concerned about by- right back yard accessory dwelling units than providing for the basic types of uses that the City has an obligation to regulate. As a result the City was very late to formulate an amendment to regulate Data Centers and the one proposed on Emaus Avenue will be protected from having to comply with the new amendment. I would argue it was luck, not "the best in good government" that prevented Allentown from getting a data center in an incompatible location near a school, park or residential neighborhood.
luckily you have zero control over who goes and doesn’t go to heaven or hell. We know those that don’t believe in one God will be damned to hell. Matt Tuerk is a self proclaimed atheist or agnostic so he is certainly in the express lane to hell. I am sure you will be glad to see him there.
Um i dont think it insinuates he is a homosexual. He wears the pride flag all the time. There are lots of photos online of him wearing it. So under your logic he his insinuating himself he is a homosexual not the meme.
The near daily barrage of hyperbolic hate speech directed towards Mayor Matt is deeply saddening, here we have an Anonymous miscreant who is stirring up a rabid mob of sheeple to attack Matt's character and sexuality, religious beliefs, and ethnic identity.
This abhorrent behavior would result in a prolonged stay in the pillory, a device that needs to be resurrected for the satanic forces undermining our brave leaders.
Excuse me...many of us members of the stirred up mob are attacking him over his abuse of public funds (vacation in Spain etc.) and incompetence (failure to adopt timely zoning amendment for data center etc..)
I always say chalk and paint to make itZ paint what itZ ain't, gender specific or in most caseZ lipstick on the pigZ!)$?
ABE love to se the slenderman up against batts in a upcoming fight at the arena.
It is my sincere hope that on this day of celebration (Juneteenth) the author of this hate blog can liberate themselves from the shackles of jealousy towards his superior human being Matthew Tuerk
The evening was another example of incompetence and misinformation by the Administration and Council. Mota will pay the price for this flip flopping in the end. She better like data centers in her backyard.
What I also found telling was how Boyer’s boyfriend’s appointment was strangely removed from the agenda? Suddenly Hunter Daly was removed from the agenda with no explanation. Did they break-up and Boyer decided to retaliate against him? Or did the administration realize they were just rewarding another unqualified friend?
It’s only abhorrent to you because you like having a crook and fraud in the mayor’s office. The man is disliked by so many in Allentown. You don’t get to shake your finger in discord at those who express their dislike for his administration like you are somehow on a higher ground. Sit down and pay attention-you may learn something
I dare you to run against Hermano Tuérk, he will treat you like a rented burro and toss u like a piece of basura!
and she would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for your meddling blog, Abe!
LOL. Your obsession with this high school reject is hilarious and sad. Hermano Tuerk, as you call him, is political trash at this point. He is done.
She is trash too
Specifically Trailer Trash
Don’t believe anything this administration is saying !! Like everything else they have no idea how these centers affect people !! I’m sorry but Frank is worst MD this city has seen, with very little knowledge makes him perfect fit with this mayor !!!
Frank is the worst Managing Director? We had one who took a felony plea and another who screamed routinely and pushed an elderly habitual drunkard down to the floor who had to be taken away by EMS. Frank is Ghandi in comparison and has a great sense of humor.
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