"He didn’t bow."
That is how The Voice of Alabama Politics told it on August 2. Marchers walking from Selma to Montgomery needed a field to sleep in. The man who let them was threatened. He let them sleep anyway.
That ground is a National Historic Trail now. It is also the ground a hyperscale data center is proposed beside. The Robert Gardner Farm, designated by the National Park Service as Campsite 3 of the 1965 march, is reported by al.com to be half a mile from the site, down U.S. Highway 80.
They said plainly that they are for data centers:
"I'm all for data centers because I use a lot of data. But, Josh, this is sacred ground, and this is not where we should be building because the land is cheap."
And on how the decision gets made:
"We've got to have some sort of a process that's open and transparent for the people, so that everybody is on the same page about what is allowed, what isn't allowed."
We agree. That is the entire ask, and it has not changed. Name the tenant before any vote. Publish the executed water-service contract, not a summary. Publish the electric-service agreement and the cost-allocation study. State the dollar value of the abatement.
Four questions. Not one of them has been answered in public. A vote taken without them is a vote on an unknown.
Nobody here is asking anyone to stop building in Alabama. We are asking not to be the place where cheap land counts for more than the road.12345678