Updated 4:15 p.m. — Residents say they’re doing the heavy lifting and negotiating with data center firms to help protect their neighborhoods and quality of life.
They want the local Prince William County Government to step in and do more to protect residents as more data centers — the backbone of the internet — encroach on the surrounding areas outside Manassas and western Prince William County.
It’s a bit unusual to have one-quarter of your county supervisors facing recall petitions from their constituents. It’s also unusual that Prince William County has no Ombudsman or Ethics Office. So, what other recourse do our citizens have?
In the Navy, when a commanding officer is relieved for cause, it is usually not for specific misdeeds but for leadership failures that adversely affected subordinates or enabled their substandard performance. You’ll hear terms like “loss of trust and confidence in the ability to command” or “cultivating a poor command climate.” There is a recognition that bad leadership is unacceptably corrosive to an organization.
It seems clear to us that, as a group, our local elected leaders in Prince William County appear to be struggling to make decisions regarding the long-term strategic use of a scarce resource — our land.
Such land use decisions are critical to ensuring our county will be one that continues to attract new residents and new businesses and retains the current attributes that attracted current residents to move here.
