Playing politics with data centers

Happy summer! You know, I was just thinking how we could use a little warmer weather around here.

Speaking of steamy subjects…data centers! They’ve captured our political imaginations like never before. 

Whether someone is fit for office or not boils down to her opinion on data centers. Anything less than a total thumbs down is met with derision and suspicion. Candidates have become sudden data center experts and advocates.

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No one on the local political scene has her finger on the data center pulse better than County Commission Chair Diana Finegan.

Say what you want about Finegan, but she knows how to play her political cards. As the board Chair, she holds the gavel. Which means she gets to direct the conversation, placing herself out front on the data center issue.

Candidates can only rail against data centers. Finegan can do something about it within the limited capacity of the office.

While it was Commissioner Jeff Kinnard who suggested the county needed specific data center regulations, Finegan is the one who proposed the temporary moratorium. Citrus was one of the first counties in Florida to put the brakes on data centers; hardly a day goes by that I don’t read of another county doing the same thing.

Finegan is out front again, wanting to put the immediate kibosh on Deltona’s request that the county delay any decision on its Holder industrial park site until late November.

Let’s jump into it.

First up, the County Commission meets today at 1 p.m. Can’t remember why it’s Monday and not Tuesday this week, but just a reminder.

I didn’t attend Thursday’s eight-hour Planning and Development Commission meeting on Deltona’s request to add 800 acres of “heavy” industrial to its already 557 acres of “light” industrial in Holder for a data center. I caught bits and pieces throughout the day online.

Very impressed both with the thoroughness of the PDC board members in their questioning, and citizens who hung in all day to get their three minutes at the mic.

It was an unsurprising unanimous vote to recommend denial. The data center plan was too vague and lacked detail. PDC members were quite skeptical of the entire enterprise. 

As we learned the night before the meeting, Deltona asked the county to delay the final public hearing until late November. Its reasons, um, stretched the limits of zoning logic. 

One was that Deltona wanted to see how the property tax vote shakes out because it could affect its bottom line. Well, duh. We’re all in that boat. Guess we should just shut down the county government until after Nov. 3.

Many citizens commenting online had a much different theory: It seemed a clear attempt on Deltona's part to move this application out of harm's way past the election, thus ensuring potential yes County Commission votes are not damaged politically.

To coin the phrase: We were born at night, but not last night.

The matter is scheduled for a County Commission public hearing on July 14. Finegan has added to today’s agenda her suggestion that the board immediately reject Deltona’s request for a delay.

“The two arguments made by the applicant for continuance are not relevant to the pending applications that will come before the board. We simply need to have these applications heard and decided to allow our community to be able to move forward,” the agenda memo states.

OK, so, a few things.

One, it’s a stretch to call this an emergency, which is the only way she can add it to the meeting agenda after the published deadline. The public hearing is set for July 14. What's the harm of waiting until then for the board to decide whether to approve a continuance?

Her first challenge may be getting it heard at all. Considering the May 12 uproar over another commissioner’s agenda, it might not go well. I would fully expect Finegan to play this to the hilt; she doesn’t hesitate to openly criticize colleagues who don't agree with her. She's going to want this vote.

That’s just reality. Finegan simply understands how all this works. Which means she shouldn’t be surprised if other commissioners are not as eager to join her posse against data centers. Especially since the matter comes to the board in a few weeks, anyway.

On the other hand, it may not be worth the fight. Finegan has citizens solidly with her on this one. Commissioners who refuse her request invite unnecessary headaches. They could just nip it in the bud. Support Finegan with a 5-0 vote and then move on with their day. Hmmm. We'll see.

Data center politics. Interesting times.

Have a great Monday, friends.

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