I live in Botetourt County and I’m against this data center being built. It was shoved down our throats before anyone knew about it. It was kept hush hush because the Board of Supervisors signed a do not disclose agreement with google. That in itself should tell you a thing or two. Absolutely NO ONE that I know wants this monstrosity built in our county. Botetourt county does NOT have resources to provide for this data center. I’m asking you to please vote yes on SB334.

When the Botetourt County Board of Supervisors inked an agreement with Google June 24, 2025 to build a data center in exchange for community development funds, they had a press release ready to go and lined up fawning coverage in most of the local news outlets. This was the first time the public heard anything about a Google data center deal; months later, as the public learned more about the costs of data centers--including the accelerated exhaustion of water supplies for the entire region, including Roanoke City--and came out against this particular data center plan in greater numbers, the Board justified its actions in a Frequently Asked Questions page, which noted that the zoning ordinance had been amended to include data centers in November 2024 without any dissenting opinion. They neglected to mention that they called it then a "speculative" amendment, with no deals in the works. Setting aside that galling falsehood, and the absurdity in expecting the public to follow and parse the significance of every change in zoning, it's telling that there is not even such a fig leaf to point to when it comes to the Google deal itself. From the company's early 2024 scouting trip all the way up through that June 2025 Board meeting, the deal was never publicly discussed; instead it was worked out in closed-door sessions. The Board invoked Section 2.2-3711 Subsection A of the Code of Virginia of 1950 to a comical degree: in June Section A.3 protected them since "no previous announcement [had] been made of [Google]'s interest in locating or expanding facilities in the community." By July the Economic Development Authority was collecting revenue from the land sale. The Botetourt County Board of Supervisors is evasive and dissembling, but not uniquely so; while some communities are fortunate enough to have leadership that considers public opinion rather than avoiding it, too many others end up in similar situations, not learning of these deals until it's too late because these companies consider disclosure and debate bad for business. To which we say secrecy is bad for good governance. SB334, as it exists on 02/26/2026, deals a major blow against secrecy, by requiring disclosure and discussion of these proposals before they are approved. This bill should not be set aside for next year, nor watered down to a recommendation or, worse, a measure that grants localities the ability to allow these hearings. This is like granting the fox the authority to warn the henhouse of danger. Residents need state-level protections to ensure that the profound impacts of these projects are debated before they are approved, not after their elected local officials have done their petty best to convince them it's too late to do anything about it. The Southwest Virginia Data Center Transparency Alliance supports SB334.

Support SB334. Residents of southwest Virginia should have a say in this as many other people who live near data centers have already reported health problems.

Vote yes on SB334

I support SB334! Big data centers are small short term gains, for huge long term labilities, simply put...this HAS to have public input, this NEEDS to be democratic...