Tag Archives: sentinal

east whiteland, land of betrayal and bad plans.

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Sign of the times taken by someone NOT trespassing. Not my photo, saw it on social media. Corporate welfare bought to you by Governor Josh Shapiro. Residents are always optional in his equations.

East Whiteland Township, Chester County is just a place where most honestly feel government pays lip service for every shitty thing that happens. Well not everyone. Some just ignore us altogether like State Representative Kristine Howard. She literally does nothing and says nothing. Never shows up for anything in her district. But she is BFFs now with neighboring State Representative Danielle Friel Otten whom people elected as a pipeline activist and that didn’t last long as she just wanted to sit at the popular kids table in Harrisburg and is a sell out.

Governor Josh Shapiro is everywhere as he is up for re-election. But he is busy having his literal neighbors dislike him and handing out corporate welfare as that sign in East Whiteland indicates. Yes I can have that opinion while I say I told you so. Shapiro has always been exactly who he is.

If anyone had been paying attention except for some of us, they would have seen it back when he was former Congressman Joe Hoeffel’s Chief of Staff (1999-2003). We certainly saw it when we were starting to fight eminent domain for private gain in Ardmore, PA. It was literally his job to help and/or at least listen to Hoeffel’s constituents. He didn’t and I can distinctly remember him avoiding residents in Ardmore at a town hall meeting in early eminent domain days. The meeting was at a senior center in Ardmore.

Now we don’t really have a viable choice on the other side of the aisle, just Marge Simpson, err Stacy Garrity. That woman was pro-data center until a lightbulb went off and she thought she could maybe get two extra votes and she flip flopped to being sort of against them.

There is one person whom we know cares 100%: State Senator Katie Muth. She is a fierce mama bear for all of us. She cares. She shows up.

I guess I just don’t understand how anyone thinks this data center or any data centers are OK. I also don’t understand one of the East Whiteland Supervisors after finding this video:

Now he is only one of three supervisors. But like with many other municipalities, you have at least one who thinks data centers are wonderful and the hypocrite tree hugger in that video from NBC 10 above that’s on YouTube is the one in East Whiteland. According to this media report and subsequent research, he apparently works for Morris Arboretum owned by the University of Pennsylvania so does that mean Morris Arboretum and Penn are pro data centers?

https://www.morrisarboretum.org/blog/penn-today-qa-chief-arborist-peter-fixler

But the rest of the East Whiteland board? It’s like they are doing fear based governance. They are so afraid of what might happen to them that they’re not thinking about what will happen to the all of us and aren’t I allowed to have that opinion? Shouldn’t the courage of your convictions mean something when you’re an elected official? I mean, if you can’t stand up for the people who elected you why are you in office? What are you getting out of it?

Today, as I was standing outside in my garden, looking into my woods, I was pondering all of this. I will share my thoughts next in a little video, and then I will share some video snippets from the most recent East Whiteland meeting and some other stuff.

I’m sad. I am sad that we don’t matter. I’m sad that our local environment doesn’t matter. And I am fearful we will run out of water and not be able to afford our power. No one has been able to allay these fears and I don’t think they really can and I’m allowed to have that opinion too.

What happens if we actually become Logan’s Run?

https://paenvironmentdaily.blogspot.com/2026/07/pjm-interconnection-issues-maximum.html?m=1

https://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/US/HTM/1937/0/0394..HTM

https://www.inquirer.com/news/pennsylvania/east-whiteland-data-center-proposed-changes-20260709.html

https://www.inquirer.com/business/peco-new-office-chester-malvern-20260709.html

as the sword of damocles hangs over our heads

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Resident photo, East Whiteland Data Center Site NOT TRESPASSING!

The Sword of Damocles. I think that’s a good and applicable metaphor for those of us in any community throughout Pennsylvania dealing with the issue of data centers. We live in a state of eventual peril, and our elected officials don’t really seem to get it and or really care. Or if they care at all, do they care enough?

East Whiteland in particular I’m beginning to find especially frustrating. With everything it’s no we couldn’t possibly, it’s never maybe we can investigate that as a solution.

Every time you turn around yet another community is being faced with a potential data center, or inadequate bad pablum smeared data center ordinance language developed by people who are really in it to get data centers in communities. And yes, I can have that opinion because it’s the truth in my opinion.

The developers are your typical developers and this could be a warehouse or an apartment building or condominium complex or bad stick frame townhouse development. They don’t really care, they’re just in it to make money. and like typical developers they will build their build and move on to the next community whose lives they are going to impact negatively.

There seems to be a couple of court cases pending, so there’s no actual data center building going on at the moment in East Whiteland, but it never should’ve gotten this far. This township had the ability when this first started to say no, but they lost their balls along the way.

This started in 2018. I know because I was following it and so was Ginny Kerslake. It was around the same time that the developer tried unsuccessfully to get a hydrogen hub in West Whiteland next to where he wanted the data center in East Whiteland.

When I asked about this then and asked them if they had ever heard of Loudon County Virginia or how bad this could be the response was along the lines of (and I’m paraphrasing), “It couldn’t be that bad.”

I warned officials in this township then that a human tsunami would arrive when they least expected it about this data center. And the human tsunami is here and the residents are not backing down, which is something this township is not used to because there isn’t a lot of staying power on certain issues. But with this the issue of data centers, residents are united.

And it’s not just the residents of East Whiteland. It’s the surrounding communities who would be affected by this data center or who are going to be affected by another data center. This issue is non-partisan. People just don’t want them, and if you study the fine print in our electric bills, we’re already paying for data centers. We’re paying for what we didn’t ask to have dumped on us. That’s just classic isn’t it?

Resident photo no trespassing involved

A truthfully, we shouldn’t have to have it. There’s an opportunity right now in Harrisburg thanks to State Senator Katie Muth to pass a bill that would allow for a moratorium on data centers. It wouldn’t be forever, but it would give people breathing room, but of course the lobbyists and the politicians, who have swallowed the Emperor’s new clothes as being spun by Governor Josh Shapiro, just don’t get it, and their ignorance (or deliberate obdurance) could cost us our communities, our health, our environment, our home values, and more.

State Senator Katie Muth is the only elected official who seems to give a damn most days.

Who is going to take care of us when our wells run dry? Who is going to take care of us when we don’t have enough energy for our use because it’s being hogged by a data center? Who is going to keep us from literally losing our minds from the noise of a data center which will also affect our children, our pets, our wildlife?

Resident photo no trespassing involved

I’m tired of being Sister Mary Sunshine on this issue. It’s wrong and when did our government become people who didn’t protect the people who elected them in the first place? Do any of them have courage? That remains to be seen.

Now there’s this narrative being spun in East Whiteland that Foote Mineral really isn’t a super fund/EPA site any longer. Don’t know what they’re smoking, but it really must be good, huh?

Yes. It. Is.

That Foote Mineral site is a bad site and this is a greed driven bad plan. Data centers are not good for any community. And yes I can have that opinion.

And a brief segue to Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, and Salem Township. Does anyone really believe that the data center land owners give a crap about the cats living on one particular parcel I mean, where are they going with them? Are they just making them disappear? Doesn’t the potential for animal cruelty matter either?

https://www.wnep.com/article/news/local/luzerne-county/friends-and-ferals-removed-from-salem-township-data-center-properties-while-rescuing-cats-berwick-qts-salem-township/523-d8709ca6-4fac-418a-8948-b21a5153e2e5

My greatest fear with these data centers is the reality that our local governments and our state government is creating a Logan‘s Run scenario for the future. And that’s not as crazy as it sounds if you look at what’s happening with the negative effects of data centers in other states already.

https://www.eastwhiteland.org/government/departments/planning_development/sentinel,_green_fig_data_center_on_swedesford_road.php

East Whiteland Township among other municipalities still has the opportunity to grow balls and do the right thing.

But will they?

Signing off utterly disgusted.

I don’t know what we’re celebrating on July 4 but it seems like this country is on a bad track and data centers are just part of it.

Logan’s Run here we come.

Make sure you read Ginny Kerslake’s editorial in the Inquirer.

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/data-centers-moratorium-shapiro-katie-muth-pennsylvania-20260701.html

Resident photo no trespassing

why much ado about data centers? simple, they will kill what we call home.

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It’s hard NOT to think about data centers. We are living this nightmare, just like pipelines. It is a very crazy thing to realize not enough people in positions of power give a shit about residents in the equation of data centers.

In East Whiteland they never, ever should have said “yes”. The could have IMHO said freaking NO.

In East Whiteland if the supervisors would only find where exactly they left their collective balls, they could still say “no”. But will they? So far it’s the residents are wrong and Papa Government is right.

I am not buying it. It’s like living in a parallel universe, but then again this is the township who few years ago also thought pipelines were nothing to bother about. Of course it doesn’t matter apparently that their residents are still in blast zones.

Then there are things with the East Whiteland that just make you scratch your head. At the recent meeting among other things they had a public hearing where they closed the record before they took a vote….and the solicitor on duty didn’t catch that and WTF?

But the other thing is this: the zoning officer guy for the township (not the zoning hearing board lawyer) was disappeared…in MAY. And WHY? Did he retire? Was he ill? We would have heard right? So what actually happened? And OMG they did NOT like being asked why he was gone and why the current assistant manager was chosen? She was the former manager of East Vincent when the zoning change went through for PENNHURST, correct? What are some of the concerns with how the East Whiteland data center came about? The ZONING. Sorry not sorry. This is how conspiracy theories start and have some actual justification don’t they?

This is exhausting. How do our elected officials except for people like State Senator Katie Muth NOT get data centers? They are getting it in Luzerne County. Look what they just did:

Luzerne data ctrDownload

And State Senator Katie Muth has introduced a data center moratorium bill:

2025-0-SB1359P1770 data center moratorium billDownload

There is no law on the books that precludes the East Whiteland from saying no to this or anything else but it just has to be legal, right? The supervisors need to believe what they are doing is right and tell the solicitor and staff to find a way but they don’t, do they? Why don’t they argue the supremacy clause to the US Constitution, for example? They are the government and protecting the residents is the right side of this issue, right? Hows about procedural due process right?

Now Judge Verwey bounced an East Whiteland residents’ case yesterday (just one of them) but that is not bad I think because is it quite possibly not merely a procedural bounce but what lawyers will call a complex jurisdictional? Will this not result in a de novo hearing in Commonwealth Court? De novo means a fresh look, doesn’t it? So this was a move on a chess board, not the end of the story. (Maybe just my opinion, but I am allowed it.)

  1. The entry way for Commonwealth Court is Common Pleas Court, correct?
  2. If this was a bad case it would have gotten bounced at preliminary objections. A hearing was had, briefed, argued, yes?
  3. Based on this, this is not a case you consider on the outset, you do it based upon the hearing, correct? Off it goes to be heard elsewhere.

This is why I think this has legs. Maybe just my opinion, but those are some thoughts. This was a case of first impression yes? And it wasn’t immediately bounced in the hearing was it? Verwey chewed on it, and then decided.

Order of Court 6.11.26 2026-03896-Download

https://www.inquirer.com/news/pennsylvania/east-whiteland-data-center-judge-denial-challenges-20260611.html

https://www.inquirer.com/business/natural-gas-whitehawk-data-centers-20260612.html

The government is an adverse party to the citizenry because they should have looked after the residents, right?

It makes me sad. I was thinking about all of this the other day. I actually drove out to the developments the other day to sit on their road and look across Swedesford at the location for the data center. How can they not see this is most simply put a bad plan? Here are some photos. A few were taken by the neighbor of the permits.

Stormwater Basin_215 Valley Creek BlvdDownload

That’s all I have got, and yes this was a meandering ramble. I am just sad that we are dealing with this EVERYWHERE.

We as residents have everything to lose and government is NOT protecting us. Period.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/12/opinion/data-center-ai-democrats.html

If you would like to donate to the legal fund for the data center group, no donation is too small. Here is a link: https://venmo.com/u/communityfriends

Stay cool, it’s hot outside and try to conserve water as we are in a drought warning. Last thought? How would we survive serious drought warnings with data center around here? In my humble opinion, we wouldn’t.

From a RTK request results Ginny Kerslake received

Put that in your proverbial pipe and smoke it. The devil is in the details East Whiteland residents (and neighbors.) Keep fighting.

Ciao for now.