So instead of preparing another three-minute speech for October 27, 2026 to give at Town of Apex Council Meeting, I’ve decided it will be more effective (and much less stressful) for me to write and send my comments along with lobbying visits to many officials. Here’s the speech that I was working on:
Thank you, Council members to vote in FEBRUARY for a one-year moRATorium on data centers. I also want to thank Mayor Gilbert for consistently speaking out in opposition to hyperscale Data Centers. You uphold what it means to live in a town with the motto “The Peak of Good Living.” For anyone supporting data centers coming to Apex-New Hill, I question your ethical standards and know we can find better ways to flourish and prosper.
I took a computer math class in grad school when I learned about garbage in, garbage out (GIGO). Poor quality input results in similar output. Rubbish in, rubbish out is an alternate wording for our Europeans. I will discuss GIGO more in a moment but speaking of Europeans, my Dam ancestors sailed from England to the New Hampshire colony in 1650. They flourished in the New World with occupations including fishing, agriculture, pharmacy, politics and military service from the Revolutionary War up until World War II where my father and his brother both served.
Let’s think for a moment about the American Dream. Would you agree America is a place where your are free to choose whatever way of life you want? Many people choose to work hard, pay taxes, buy a home, raise a family, etc. Isn’t the ultimate dream to be grateful for the opportunities and retire with peace and dignity? The public who speak out are standing up for what it means to be an American.
What kind of world are we creating for our children and grandchildren? I worked in the southwestern U.S. and the Hopi Tribe frequently discussed their future Seventh Generation before taking action.
So I’m the 12th generation of Dam’s in America. I wonder what any generation before me would say about the rapid technological changes we are currently experiencing. To think the year I was born saw the first satellite launched into space. Currently, SpaceX proposed to the FCC to launch one million AI data center satellites. I did not use a cell phone which we called a brick until 1990 which could only be used for making phone then the first iPhone in 2007.
AI experts are saying in the next year automated agents will be managing our lives and in a decade financial and other institutions will fail. Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, says AI is much more dangerous than nuclear weapons! OpenAI’s AI agents illegally hacked into other companies like HuggingFace. On Saturday October 17th, during the National Day of Action No Kings and Early voting march the organizer’s META’s Instagram crashed and now META admits they made a “bad call.” So the big Tech company is censoring free speech?
To quote Ben Rhodes who worked as a speech writer for the Obama Administration: “We live in a cynical time. We are surrounded by forces designed to make us feel like we lack control — whether it’s an algorithm that shapes what we see, an oligarchy that controls wealth and power, a world untethered from old notions of order, a climate that is changing, or artificial intelligence, while mimics human functions and thought. Corruption abounds. The existence of truth itself is distorted and contested.”
The GIGO concept can be applied to a wide range of applications including for current technologies like artificial intelligence and efforts to regulate AI hyperscale data centers.
Gallup Poll (March 2026): 70% of Americans oppose the local construction of AI data centers in their areas, compared to 21% who support it; 48% are strongly opposed. It’s one of the few issues that finds agreement across party lines!
Tech workers are now dealing with Bossware programs like Hubstaff, Time Doctor, and TSheets to track keystrokes, take screenshots, record webcams, or log mouse movements. Employees are concerned for their jobs now!
Here’s a local report on the Richmond County fiasco:
Inside the secretive deal for a $10 billion data center in rural North Carolina
“Residents say they were left out of the decision-making process for a project that includes hundreds of polluting diesel generators.” NC Newline by Lisa Sorg.
What happens when AI companies decide to demonstrate their power by solving the most complex problems in math and science? Does that make people smarter having the answers or will that make us weaker in the long run? Recently, OpenAI says they solved many math problems including a $1 million Millennium Prize that are causing many professors to speak out.
Yuval Noah Harari, professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who wrote the bestselling book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, compares how a cow sold to market does not know about the money exchanged in the transaction will be similar to when AI takes over financial systems we will lose control over trust in money. “They will take over the bureaucracies like the financial system, create much more sophisticated financial systems and legal systems that we can't understand. So just as cows can't understand the financial system that controls their lives today, we will not be able to understand the AI financial system that will control our lives in 10 or 20 years.” Check out his latest interview: AI could lead to the collective dementia of humankind.
Dr. Harari also comments on Big Tech battles between the US and China, with some leaders like Elon Musk influencing elections in Europe. In July 2026, Elon Musk stated during an interview with The Economist that "money won't matter by 2036" due to rapid advancements in artificial intelligence and humanoid robotics and on most days he goes from exhilarated to terrified about the future of AI.
People’s power is being taken away by lawless leaders who are corrupt and lie!
We need guardrails before we crash off the mountain cliff. Why are there no regulations at any level controlling AI agents and content? Who is protecting our rights to clean air and clean water?
Tonight I represent the Protect Wake County Coalition and 5000+ people who signed a petition for no data centers. Recall in August 2025, the surprise application for a 240 that overnight changed to a 300 or more megawatt Data Center (which they called a Digital Campus that would employ very few employees) taking more power than needed for three of our towns and having hundreds of diesel generators proposing to take our air, water, soil, farms, and so much more got submitted. Within a few days, we mobilized with over 100 inspired, caring people wearing red shirts attending the council meeting. For several months we consistently spoke out about the tremendous costs and few potential benefits of permitting an industrial factory near neighborhoods, schools, and playgrounds that produces incredibly dangerous Artificial Intelligence programs.
Over the past several months, the Apex Planning Department organized several meetings with the Environmental Advisory Board subcommittee on Data Centers. These meetings have not been well publicized, attended and only recently have they been recorded for review. Why bother attending a meeting when we are not allowed to speak nor have copies of slides and documents provided to the board? Recall the previous EAB voted to approve the first data center application last November with no input from the public!
The recent meeting on Noise Impacts from Data Centers prompted me to speak tonight because I have Heard enough!
Apex Is Well-Positioned to Attract Large Businesses, But Faces Headwinds, Experts Say
“A lack of large land tracts, national instability, and AI are all factors the town will have to grapple with, council members discussed during a work session on future economic development.” by Jasmine Gallup March 20, 2026 Indy Daily
The Apex Planning Department is fast tracking a new ordinance to regulate noise impacts apparently because two current board members terms will expire in January. The noise ordinance is being drafted by the planning department without the official help of an expert which the town said would be hired and paid for by the developer. Why was this not done during the time when the town reviewed the previous application? Why is a noise ordinance being developed only by a haphazard literature review by planning staff using free information which will result in not protecting our community? The draft noise ordinance under review will not protect residents from harmful impacts that can lead to all sorts of health problems and does not consider wildlife, pet, nor livestock.
Other previous meetings we held on topics including water (which was not recorded), NC DEQ Economic Development that approved the $10 Billion Richmond County Amazon Data Center (each generator got a separate permit by DEQ so they don’t treat them as a single source of pollution), discussions on air quality impacts, and emergency response. There are so many topics we have not discussed that deserve attention and a need to compile all the information into one document for all the discussions over the past 14 months. Did the Town Council get all your questions answered when you met for several hours last January to discuss power and water issues? If so, we have not seen the answers to your questions. We have not heard from anyone who actually lives near data centers. Let talk about construction impacts and traffic gridlocks which have not been discussed by the planning department. No tours of data centers have been organized and I think only one person on the EAB took a tour of a data center.
Based on what we have heard regarding all meetings on data centers so far, the town is not in a better position to protect Apex residents from the onslaught of hyperscalers. The hyperscalers, trillion dollar companies like Anthropic, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta-Facebook, OpenAI and X are spending billions if not trillions of dollars to rapidly build up AI factories.
If any decisionmaker works for these companies or has any financial interest in giving loans or other incentives, you must recuse yourself from this process or we will vote you out of office.
No federal or state environmental reviews have been conducted which are required by laws like the National Environmental Policy Act.
Virginia governor signed a bill restricting NDAs.
We have not discussed what these hyperscale factories are producing including AI models. Recall the problem we have with computer viruses – harmful programs that infect computer programs we need? AI has a similar problem called AI worms! AI can create bot programs that are malicious as well as being used by bad actors to create significant problems.
Stop wasting time and money on activities that we know will harm our community. Remove industrial land use designations from farmlands surrounding Apex. Keep your promise for the Peak of Good Living!
What if our theme for the TC includes: Don't change the UDO code allowing Data Centers to be built. Don't change the Land Use in New Hill from residential to industrial! Stop Wasting our Time and our Tax Dollars! We will vote you out of office and get state auditors to evaluate where our tax dollars are going! The EAB process is a very bad joke. We're losing TRUST in our democracy.
I'm very concerned not only about having just one AI Hyperscale data center built on 190 acres. The Peak Weekly mentioned two nearby parcels of similar size in New Hill.
“The Apex UDO permits uses through a Use Table. Section 4.2.1 is explicit about what a blank cell means:
“A blank cell indicates that a use type is not allowed in the respective zoning district, unless it is expressly allowed by other regulations of this Ordinance.”
Data centers aren’t in the table at all. In fact, there’s no category for them anywhere in the code.
That doesn’t make them automatically illegal. North Carolina’s Supreme Court has held that a town can’t simply ban every use its code fails to list. Apex’s code handles that with a window. Under Section 4.2.1(G) of the Apex UDO, “New or Unlisted Uses,” (like Data Center would be), the Planning Director “may approve the unlisted use” if its impact is “similar in nature, function, and duration to other uses allowed in a specific zoning district.”
The simplest option costs nothing. A UDO text amendment is a legislative decision.
What that means is – if anyone asks the council to edit the Apex UDO, they can simply say no.”
What if the plan is to build a corridor of buildings from Chatham County to us? The new Virginia governor is cracking down on their DC Alley so the companies want to build elsewhere. Here’s more from the Peak Weekly article:
“QUESTIONS THE TOWN SHOULD ANSWER
Town Council meets October 27. These are the questions I’ve put to the Town through records requests, and ones any resident can raise during public forum:
The subcommittee’s working document is Natelli’s own amendment, edited by staff and “Sent to Applicant.” After Natelli withdrew, why did the Town keep the developer’s amendment as the starting point for its own rules?
Where is the written Mini-Brooks Act exemption for the Black & Veatch data center contract, and who signed it?
What has Black & Veatch delivered, what has it invoiced, and what has the Town paid?
Why does the contract have no conflict-of-interest clause, when the Town’s own draft noise ordinance requires one of its acoustical consultants?
Will Black & Veatch, or any affiliate, be barred from reviewing a data center application under rules it helped write?
Which developer did staff coordinate with on the original noise conditions, and will that correspondence be released?
Will the Town release Black & Veatch’s acoustics review and the notes from the August 7 meeting?
Natelli said it would reconsider if Apex approved a text amendment allowing data centers. Has anyone at the Town been in contact with Natelli, its consultants or its end user since the withdrawal?
The draft Peak Plan 2055 map labels the US-1/Old US-1 corridor “Light Industrial.” Was that designation drawn with data centers in mind, and will the final plan say whether data centers belong there?
Natelli is gone and no application is pending. Why not simply decline the amendment and leave the code as it is? And did Council consider that option when it adopted the moratorium?”
Still need to discuss voting machines, stop the steal II
Ronald Reagan: There he goes again…