My name is Verndell Robinson. I am an award-winning realtor of seven years who is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Maritime Law. I am running for Potomac District Supervisor because we deserve transparency and accountability from our elected officials.
For instance, most other major counties in our region maintain a lame-duck session policy. A lame duck session is the period between Election Day in November and December 31. Instituting a lame-duck session policy to prevent political games and contentious votes is routine during election years. In particular, focusing on avoiding contentious land use matters during the lame duck session. Instituting this policy gives the public confidence and ensures that Board members and elected officials do not engage in any political games or “pay to play” backroom deals.
But here in Prince William County, it’s clear that some of our current supervisors do not care to uphold that level of transparency and trust with voters. At the center of this issue is their continued push for rampant data center developments.
A lame-duck policy has been proposed in Prince William County to specifically prevent any major land use matters, including data center development applications. Supervisor Bailey remains silent on whether she’ll support the resolution to protect Potomac District residents from political games in the July 11th vote.
I question the motives of her silence. Is she indebted to the data center industry? Did she not hear the cries of the 254 registered constituents saying they do not want more data centers during a two-day Board of County Supervisors meeting?
Why hasn’t she shared the intended Potomac Tech Park on Rt 234 near Forest Park, even though there are already 11.7 million square feet of dedicated data center space elsewhere? Prince William County has a crescent that was not supposed to be touched, but now it seems that our pro-data-center supervisors want to turn it into a concrete jungle.
Maybe her political donations give us a better understanding of her motives. According to her reported donations to the Board of County Elections, most of her donations come directly from landowners who are selling to developers, unions that support data center developments, those who stand to profit from data centers, and the data center developers themselves.
Andrea Bailey has never voted against any data center project, and now she wants them right here in our district. As you know, data centers in residential areas bring with them a host of problems: noise, lower residential tax value, and electrical overload. With the approval of the master plan in December of 2022 for the rezoning of the Potomac Tech Park, data centers are now a Potomac District problem.
To compound the issue, initial applications only bring more applications in return. Now, there are proposals for the land directly across from the intended Potomac Tech Park. This is an area where developers have already shown interest in expanding their current proposal to neighboring residential subdivisions, namely Minnieville Manor, Mallard Overlook, and Ashland.
Potomac District residents: We must fight back now! We deserve a voice that will listen, and that will act in the best interest of the public and not themselves or the data centers. We must stop the political games of lame-duck sessions and prevent applications like Potomac Tech Park from being forced through.
I urge you to support candidates like me, Verndell Robinson, that will listen to the voices of the people. ACT NOW to help pass the lame-duck resolution. Demand Supervisor Bailey makes her position clearly known and demands that our Board fully supports this resolution by emailing [email protected].
Verndell Robinson
Candidate, Prince William Board of County Supervisors Potomac District
Editors note: Potomac Local News aims to share opinions on issues of local importance from a diverse range of residents across all our communities. If you’ve recently spoken at a Board of County Supervisors meeting, send us a typed copy of your remarks for publication to [email protected].
