A reminder of some of the political boot lickers when it comes to data centers.
A reminder that while Senator Katie Muth shows up every time East Whiteland residents need her, Rep. Kristine Howard tells people she will show up if she can squeeze it into her busy schedule doing nothing for constituents and nothing to upset her handlers.
State Representative Lisa Borowski has knee pads with the guvvie’s face on it.
State Representative Chris Pielli is only ever about himself and let his constituents down, abandoning them as a West Goshen Stupidvisor over pipelines and Rep. Paul Friel? He’s hustling his pussy angle it seems.
It was a packed house at Penn State in Great Valley. Quite literally standing room only and hundreds of residents turn out to tell the East Whiteland Planning Commission they didn’t want this data center.
It was a crazy contentious meeting and in the last 20 minutes one member of the planning commission learn not to mess with State Senator Katie Muth when she was defending her constituents.
One of my favorite speakers was the line man. He was freaking awesome.
And so was Ginny Kerslake and so were so many people.
Be proud East Whiteland residents and keep up the good work. Next stop supervisors.
And I know that the developer said at the meeting that he was doing this for the benefit of residents or something like that I’m paraphrasing. I don’t recall any residents requesting a data center so we’ll leave it at that.
Ahh birds of a feather on a Monday morning? State Representative Lisa Borowski who was a self- serving commissioner in Radnor Township is now an equally self-serving State Representative for Delaware County is a co-sponsor of PA HB 2151 which adds data center language dangerously so to the PA Municipalities Planning Code gets voted on this morning.
Lisa Borowski doesn’t give a good god damn about Pennsylvanians obviously and well if she’s elected again then Delaware County has lost its mind. She could’ve removed herself from the spill, but she just ignored everyone and went to her little petition signing parties. Of course she’s also let down a lot of Radnor residents recently on issues they are having where she promised to help.
Kristine Howard of course is the great invisible state representative representing parts of Chester county including East Whiteland, which is fighting a data center.
From Ginny Kerslake:
📌At 10 o’clock this morning, March 2 the Pennsylvania House Energy Committee will be voting on HB2151. You can watch the vote at the link below.
HB2151 will NOT put strict guardrails on data center development as some in Harrisburg are claiming. Expect the opposite from the Department of Community and Economic Development which has been working hand-in-hand with corporations like Amazon to fast-track projects and keep information from impacted communities. They should not be in charge of deciding what is reasonable for local data center ordinances – such things as setback distances from homes and schools or maximum allowable noise level levels.
All of these state representatives are on the ballot this year. Let’s see how they vote
‼️MISSING‼️: Rep. Lisa Borowski Lisa Borowski for State Representative. We suspect she is probably on her knees somewhere doing whatever is asked of her by Johnny Frack as this is what she does- whatever she is told. (I hope the pats on the head don’t mess up her hair.)
Lisa Borowski is a co-sponsor of horrible data center loving PA HB 2151, and was for quite a while a co-sponsor of last year’s disaster of a data center bill HB 502, until she slithered away like the snake 🐍 in the grass that she is (or muppet weasel take your pick.)
This is Lisa’s habitual political M.O. —whatever is best for Lisa. She would not and cannot be counted on to defend Delco residents on pipelines, hydrogen hubs, warehouses, or wanton development (even in Radnor Township which also doesn’t like being tagged by this lowly blogher much to my great amusement!) so unless public pressure comes to bear she will sit there on data center bills like Joshie’s good little girl.
It’s time to innundate Radnor’s fave political muppet. Call her, if they don’t pick up the phone, leave a message. DO NOT USE FOUL LANGUAGE NO MATTER WHAT – among other things, her staff doesn’t deserve it. They can’t help it if she is inept and a political striver. (I had to laugh just now because for some reason when I started to write striver, it wanted it to be stripper🤣)
If you live in her district, you also should find people to primary her and run against her who are decent candidates. After all if she can’t stand up for everyday Pennsylvanians in solidarity of getting rid of data center threats, you can’t trust her for anything. People should want someone who works for them not for themselves and special interest groups right?
STATE REP. LISA BOROWSKI 168TH DISTRICT/DELCO CO-SPONSOR OF BAD DATA CENTER BILL PA HB2151 LAST SEEN AT PHOTO OPS IN RADNOR TOWNSHIP Call 484-427-2884 or 717-772-2005 1-833-787-5039
Oh, and Lisa? The First Amendment protects my right to criticize you as now a state politician because you are no better than you were as a local politician.
In order to help residents understand how ODD the whole data center process has been in East Whiteland, I will load in documents taken off of the township website.
So back before COVID when data center stuff started being floated, it was a smaller plan. Much smaller like 78,000 square feet and it was going to have a solar field to assist self-sufficiency.
I didn’t rust that then. Why? Because the name we always hear with Green Fig the most, Charles Lyddane, was a financial services professional for decades prior to this. Research indicates he started at Xerox and moved onto financial services at Merrill Lynch and Legg Mason. Translation: that background = money driven, fees and commission driven, correct?
And then all of these Democrats think he’s wunderbar? Do they know how he ran as an endorsed Republican School Board candidate circa 2013? Allow me to quote and old Patch almost press release post as in not a regular article:
Local Republican Committees Jointly Endorse GVSD School Board Candidate Charles Lyddane
Great Valley – On March 9, 2013 Republican committee people representing Republican voters living in Great Valley’s School Board Region II (parts of Republican Areas 9 and 10) endorsed Charlie Lyddane for School Board…After an open process soliciting community input and prominently posting a notice in Malvern Patch seeking interested and qualified candidates for Great Valley School Board, the committee representing Republican voters in Region II met the candidates and caucused, endorsing Charlie Lyddane by a two -thirds vote.
According to Bill Tickner, Committee member and Willistown community leader, “Charlie Lyddane is the businessman we need to represent the Great Valley School community on the School Board. I am proud and pleased that Charlie a pro-education Great Valley parent with a strong background in finance and business development has stepped up to put those skills to work on our behalf. We need someone like Charlie who’s willing to steward scarce taxpayer resources into classroom education first..Mr. Lyddane has lived in Great Valley School District for 15 years and has graduated two children from the District. A graduate of Union College in Schenectady, NY, Mr. Lyddane has a BA in History and also attended the Business School at Union. He started his career at Xerox. He was Vice President of Merrill Lynch and Legg Mason in West Chester for 23 years. As a real estate developer and investor in Chester County for the past 9 years, Mr. Lyddane has significant experience in budget development and implementation, as well as achieving strategic goals in a timely and cost efficient manner. He also has significant experience in Property Management.
According to Mr. Lyddane, “When you are managing shareholder’s money, you must produce a product that is beneficial to those shareholders.
Boom there it is – “you must produce a product that is beneficial to those shareholders.”
That tells you what you need to know, doesn’t it? It’s not about community, or the environment or anything altruistic, just good old fashioned green backs right?
Before I go back to the data center of it all, one more article from his life before Green Fig which makes you wonder is this just like another stock pick? Is this why all of the back and forth?
…Some brokers almost cringe at the term “stock-picker.” It can conjure up visions of reps with frayed nerves and churned accounts.
Not Charlie Lyddane.
“I’m not ashamed to admit that I pick stocks,” says Lyddane, a soloist at Legg Mason in West Chester, Pa. “It’s what a broker is supposed to do. My clients like that kind of help.”…Apparently so. Lyddane reports $1 million in production and $120 million under management. He’s been a broker for 19 years and has never been part of a team.
“I’ve never had the opportunity to have or need a partnership,” Lyddane says. “Besides, I like doing things on my own. No one will care about my clients like I do.”
He thinks it’s wrong to hand off client service. “My clients pay to deal with me,” Lyddane says. “I craft stock portfolios of blue chips with a bent toward technology. I’m their single source, and I like being responsible.”
He is responsible – literally.
With 400 clients and 1,000 accounts, Lyddane uses discretionary account management as a time-saving technique….Although he does his own thing, Lyddane appreciates the help he gets from the firm. “Legg Mason supports a number of teams, but I’ve found them to be very supportive of what I do. I have a great arrangement.”
Anyway, the solar field idea disappeared and then they wanted these box things they called pods. Then I think those disappeared because of maybe crypto currency concerns?
I heard a while back that PECO said something like that data center would be like the second largest site next to the City of Philadelphia and if so, how crazy is that?
Someone I know wrote today:
The Limerick Nuclear plant generates about 2300 MWH (megawatt hours) of electricity per day (with two reactors) enough for 2 million homes
The new proposed data center in town is expected to use about 100-600 MWH.
Or 8% to as much as 48% of the ENTIRE OUTPUT of a single reactor. For one data center. The equivalent of 500,000 homes.
It could actually be MORE than the energy equivalent of 500,000 homes, couldn’t it be?
We have a weak and problematic power grid already – when we have outages they will be first served (residents will get pushed down the grid) and all those diesel generators right? And then you just have to wonder HOW MANY TIMES IS EAST WHITELAND GOING TO LET THIS GUY TRY TO TWEAK A PLAN THAT ALWAYS SEEMS TO HAVE SIGNIFICANT CHANGES WHICH MEANS WHY NOT AN ENTIRE NEW SUBMISSION?
I’m not against responsible development, But when you’re talking about new kinds of technology and new kinds of factories, basically, you need the most updated [municipal] codes available, and our current codes are out of date…We don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past.
The past I was in part thinking of is the lithium contamination etc. that was Foote Mineral. Foote was an EPA site. There was a review of the site in 2024, but well, the whole data center of it all wasn’t supposed to be that ginormous yet was it?
After ceasing operations in 1991, the Site owner at the time, Cyprus Foote Mineral Company, arranged for the removal of equipment and for demolition of remaining buildings down to their foundations. In 1998, Frazer Exton Development, LP (FED) purchased the original Property (Parcel 42-3-130) and assumed responsibility for cleaning up the Site. FED also installed a single cap over both the North Quarry and South Quarry as part of cleanup activities. In December 2016, Whiteland Holdings, LP (WH), the holder of the first mortgage on the Property, foreclosed and acquired the Property from FED. In a deed recorded on August 15, 2019, WH sold parcel 42-3-130.2 to Green Fig Land LLC, and on January 31, 2022, WH sold parcel 42-3-130 to Green Fig 11.33 LLC2. At the time of this FYR’s October 2023 Site inspection, the 42-3-130 and 42-3-130.2 parcel owner had, on several occasions, permitted a local electric company to use some uncapped areas of the Site as a laydown space to store lumber. The area is not in constant use. The current 42-3-130 and 42-3-130.2 parcel owner intends to redevelop parcel 42-3-130.2 as the location for a data farm facility. In 2024, construction activities for the data farm facility were initiated on parcel 42-3-130.2.
(2For clarity purposes, Green Fig Land LLC and Green Fig 11.33 LLC are owned by the same individual.)
And of course there is a sneaky bill getting fast tracked through Harrisburg as we speak. HB5121. If you google it before reading it, benignly it is described as “which aims to assist Pennsylvania municipalities in regulating data centers through a model zoning ordinance.”
BULLSHIT. This is that thing they talked about in 2025 that would remove rights from municipalities rendering them helpless in certain zoning situation. It does a band aid slither into the municipalities planning code so there is zoning on data centers. Data Centers can pop up anywhere. It arrives just in time for the Governor to announce his re-election bid. Essentially Johnny Frackenstein (AKA Governor Josh Shapiro) wants to remove local control for communities to reject this. State run and controlled everything and aren’t we experiencing enough of that at present in Washington DC in general? This is a bad bill that has data center developers and operators all wet at the prospect (sorry, yes that’s gross but true.)
Anyway, it’s up to people to turn out in East Whiteland until this thing is for the people and not at the expense of the people. And if you care, look up who is on HB 5121 and give them a ringy dingy and say WTF (just politely.)
Look lively if you live in West Whiteland because Planning Commission on Tuesday April, 19th has data center/power plant zoning amendment crapola back for another bite at the proverbial apple 🍎 !
Residents need to turn out and say #NO again.
They already have giant data center planned for East Whiteland Township!
You don’t have to have this zoning in your Township and you really don’t want to allow the possibility for it. Just Google data centers and Louden County, Virginia.
Certain factions and developers out for an extra large pay day want this zoning but it does nothing for residents (kind of like the pipelines, truthfully.) it also sucks off your power grid which will eventually send your electricity prices up.
A victory for East and West Whiteland residents. However, a caveat: FOR NOW.
In my humble opinion this is far from over. This meeting is still a regular public meeting and it would behoove concerned residents to go and still express their opinions on this.
And as I was driving on Swedesford Road today near Malvern Hunt, I am still very curious as to how the approved data center in East Whiteland is not going to bother the development dwellers there and even possibly a little further up where the townhouse development is, that’s new.
I will also note that a certain stupidvisor in West Whiteland who is now a lame duck with a bad attitude dodged comment when asked by a reporter from the Daily Local about this. I wonder why she is being silent? Is it pure ignorance on the topic, or did someone tell her not to say anything? I think when it comes to these projects, there’s always more than meets the eye, and it’s not just local involvement, is it?
It’s a very big article in the Daily Local and it’s worth reading.
Residents take a victory lap, but don’t get complacent. Please. And why am I saying that? Because at the end of the day this also has a lot to do with politics. This is a battle won, not the war.
Once upon a time in West Whiteland Township, Chester County there was a female supervisor who was a lioness for the people. Hell no, I am definitely not speaking about Theresa Hogan Santalucia. That woman is a hamster stuck on a hamster wheel. I am speaking about Diane Snyder.
Diane Snyder was instrumental in stopping the Rouse Churchill plan in the 1990s and getting all those blessed acres saved. (That Greg Walters who was with Rouse somehow back then is now in this Green Fig Land Development along with Charles “Charlie” Lyddane, and isn’t that interesting?)
Back to Diane.
Diane was also instrumental in getting the West Whiteland Concerned Citizens group back then together. She stood up, got involved, rolled up her sleeves and look at what they accomplished? And now how many years later it’s all at risk again? Because I am not sure if all of the three West Whiteland Supervisors get it?
Yes, I am saying it out loud: I have reservations (right or wrong) that West Whiteland Supervisors Theresa Hogan Santalucia and Raj Kumbhardare don’t necessarily get it in this instance. And that concerns me because their decisions don’t happen on a tiny island in the middle of a vast ocean, and their decisions here affect more than West Whiteland residents.
Raj Kumbhardare will undoubtedly say it’s good for business because all he sees as a person with a career in database administration is the data center. He stands up for certain things, but here I just think his perspective would be different. He’s a good guy but sometimes things are lost on him. I fear this could be. He wasn’t here when the land was originally saved so he might not get the gravitas as it were.
Theresa Hogan Santalucia is not in my opinion a good person. And she is a terrible politician. Always volatile and insecure and just ignorant on so many issues. As opposed to Supervisors Raj Kumbhardare and Brian Dunn she is downright harmful. She also is not in fact particularly involved in the community she serves. And if you question her actual service and authenticity she goes on pity parties for one saying all she does is work. Well I have known lots of nurses who actually make time for volunteerism and most of us work, so that is just an excuse. Theresa IMHO would be a “yes” mind on this plan because she is unpleasant, often unknowledgeable, and seems to want to suck up to certain factions and curry favor.
Theresa Hogan Santalucia is SO unlike Diane Snyder, who did her job for the benefit of the residents, not to the detriment of residents. Diane Snyder paved the way for other female elected officials as well as putting her community first. She was a trailblazer and worked hard for the greater good.
Diane Snyder stood up. Here is a healthy excerpt of a 2008 article from the Philadelphia Inquirer:
By Don Beideman, Inquirer Staff Writer Published June 22, 2008
Sorry not sorry if I feel like this is all about the money, honey. I am allowed to have these opinions. And I am also of the opinion that they already got into East Whiteland with approval for a data center there (which I believe is a mistake) so why so greedy? I am of the opinion this takes us back to the the whole Trojan Horse idea? You know, data centers as the path to the hydrogen power plant? Money money money?
Do I have the answers about the whole data center and hydrogen plant issue? Nope, but a grand indicator is one of the faces of the plan spent years as an investment banker so do we really feel that this is for the greater good or merely someone’s greater profit?
A former West Whiteland Supervisor put it on the line to preserve land and open space in this area, so why would any West Whiteland official be gung ho to change the zoning and open up the area to industrial? And why would any elected official want to open up the area to industrial that we really don’t know enough about?
I was ambivalent about data centers until I looked into Loudoun County, Virginia. Now I’m just thinking they’re a mistake in certain areas. I worry about the one approved in East Whiteland already because I don’t think anybody did enough homework with conditions of approval as far as HVAC systems and other things like potential environmental and power worries went, and isn’t that reasonable to be concerned? I mean do the residential residents near by even really know about this data center? And if it gets supersized via West Whiteland, how will all that affect them?
And not to go all conspiracy theory but what about interested parties above this local level? Is there a push coming from elsewhere that is not as yet self evident?
Thank you Diane Snyder for what you did for us all those years ago. Now I just hope West Whiteland doesn’t let you and everyone else down in the present.
