Takeaway #1: Aptitude or attitude?
In spending much of my day with the Palm Beach County Commission’s hearing to consider Project Tango yesterday, I went through varying degrees of what might be considered PTSD from the years of what my wife Ashley and I went through with local government boards and officials to be able to renovate our historic estate. Lots of debates with attorneys and seemingly endless interactions with officials who’ve already approved of a project (in the case of the county commissioners, their predecessors) but then come back to tell you that you can’t do what was approved for you to do. There’s also the minutia that seemingly everyone with a vote wants to wade into. For example, we learned during a real-time demonstration that the ambient noise from the Project Tango site wouldn’t effectively be louder than the ambient noise in the Palm Beach County Commission hearing room when everyone in the room was silent. But then there was ongoing debate about what the definition of a hum is or something like that. We also learned that Greg Weiss, aka the Scared Turtle, is a big fan of Australia, as he thinks the country has been governed well. I can only imagine that stems from the Aussie’s COVID policy of locking down everything and literally arresting mask offenders sending them off to isolated COVID camps. Somewhere along the way you’re left wondering if certain officials are of significantly limited aptitude or if they’re just showing attitude and picking away at every possible thing to try to find a way to justify denying your project anyway. By the way, in the case of the Palm Beach County commissioners – it’s a mix of both in my view. Project Tango’s presentation included world renowned experts who addressed every possible objection presented by commissioners and members of the community. As we’ve discussed, Florida’s data center law that’s now in effect also protects Floridians from any meaningfully adverse effects. This includes preventing any financial risk from being passed onto communities, use of reclaimed water for data center facilities, and that data centers are fully regulated. Nevertheless, it appeared to be quite clear that the Palm Beach County Commission was going to vote no. Given that most of the public has been propagandized against data centers, and with AI also not being a particularly popular thing, the easy vote for commissioners was the status quo vote to do nothing and that’s exactly what they did…However what the commission now has with that vote is…
Takeaway #2: No credibility…