So, welcome to everyone who's joined us. My name is Matt Caddo. I'm the chair of the HOA Roundtable.

Welcome to this candidate forum. We are appreciative of everyone who has joined, as well as to Greg Gorham, who's a candidate in the 21st District, for joining us. We did extend an invitation to another candidate, Ms. Smith, who declined, and we'll talk about that in a second.

And then we understood that Ms. Lawson, who is another candidate, had, based on conversations with Republican officials, we understand that she had withdrawn from the race, but that seems to be contradicted by some of the mailings that people are receiving along the way. But this is something we can follow up on, and we can supplement maybe with a candidate questionnaire about some of the positions that she may or may not take on these issues. We are recording this meeting, and so it will be available for people to review, watch and review, as they make their decision for this upcoming primary election in the 21st District.

I think that, to just briefly explain that, as we have talked to candidates about these issues, the HOA Roundtable is comprised of a group of communities, whether they are organized as a homeowners association or live in a community that's not organized in HOA, but has a collective interest in the issues that are impacting our communities. So in many respects, we are kind of a narrow interest organization, because we are looking at the decisions made by public officials that impact the quality of life of residents in our communities. I, for example, am the president of the Oak Valley Homeowners Association, and we've been very concerned about some of the decisions that have been made by the Board of County Supervisors, not just on data centers, by the way.

We have had a long-standing relationship with the Board of County Supervisors on a variety of issues, including the residential rezonings that were approved for a senior community that's just south of our neighborhood, and we got into protracted discussions with Toll Brothers and the county, and came to what we thought was an excellent resolution of some of the proffers that would be made in order to accommodate the impacts on our community. So we're concerned about impacts like traffic, we're concerned about impacts that look at the load in the schools, and exactly what impacts they may or may not have. And so our whole community interest is focused on some fairly specific issues.

We occasionally hear from people in our group talking about some of the social issues that people are concerned about in an election, and we think there are appropriate forums for those kinds of discussions to take place, not necessarily ours, because we look at these more specific kinds of issues that impact our communities. The data center issue is obviously a very hot topic in our community and in the 21st District, and there can't be any better evidence of the importance that's associated with the siting of what will be the largest campus of data centers in the world if this rezoning goes through for the PW Digital Gateway, which the Board of County Supervisors has done. And since they have concluded that, there's been litigation filed, and importantly, there's been legislative initiatives filed in Richmond designed to protect our communities.

And the overwhelming power of the lobbying effort by very sophisticated lawyers and slick lobbyists have been able to thwart any kind of restraint on these data centers, and so it is a critical issue to the 21st District for us to have a representative who would articulate the views of the community on this issue of data centers. A Republican candidate obviously can have other issues that they're concerned about, and there are appropriate forms for those discussions, it's just not here. And in that context, in the invitation that we had extended to Ms. Smith as a candidate, she soundly rejected our invitation on the premise that we were not willing to talk about issues that she wanted to talk about, and she specifically did not want to talk about or focus on the data center issue.

We believe that as an organization, we have not only the right, but it is a compelling issue for us to be able to examine the views of the candidates who will represent us in Richmond on this issue, because we need strong leaders, we need strong voices, and we do not need a candidate, and nor would we think to support a candidate, in our view, from the HOA Roundtable, who does not share our view about the adverse impacts that data centers have on our communities. And nothing is more clear than when you look at the reason why data centers are being cited along the Page Link Corridor. We as an organization do not oppose data centers.

In fact, we support data centers that are appropriately located in order to provide for the infrastructure that all of us are beneficiaries of, including with new AI technology, but even for those of us that are still in the dark ages and we still just use Google and we use search mechanisms in order to gather information, including, by the way, about data centers. And so the idea that we would be somehow criticized or demonized by a candidate because we only want to talk about these impacts on our community, which is a major issue. If Ms. Smith wanted to evaluate how important this issue is to the citizens of the 21st District, which is largely comprised of the area in western Prince William County, she can look at the experience that former BOCS Chairman Ann Wheeler had when she tried to ignore us on this issue.

And I emphasize that she's the former chairman because a bipartisan group of voters rose up and spoke clearly and authoritatively on their views about whether or not these data centers should be able to be imposed in the particular locations that have been selected. And why selected there? Because it's convenient to these billion-dollar multinational data center corporations. It helps them.

It does not help the citizens of the communities they're impacted by. So we have great disappointment that Ms. Smith decided to exclude that. I have had a number of calls from people saying to me that, well, it's because she's part of an assemblage in the Saunders Lane area.

That may or may not be true. I have no idea of knowing. But if that's the reason, she should have told us that she's conflicted on this issue rather than trying to demonize us by saying, oh, you're not willing to talk about the issues that we want to talk about.

By the way, in the invitation, we did tell her that we wanted to talk about issues that impacted our communities, like the car tax, which I think all citizens want to see reforms in that and the elimination of the car tax. And there are a number of other issues we identified. The selective decision, the selective issue that Ms. Smith decided to decline her invitation is disingenuous.

And we will make sure that those that are interested in the community know about it, because we think that her decision here was poorly made. And we think that candidates have to be accountable for the decisions they make. But we welcome, obviously, Mr. Borum here, who is a candidate.

We've allowed for slots here for the other candidates if they arrive and want to participate. Even after receiving the message from Ms. Smith to decline, we offered and explained the breadth of the issues we'd be discussing. And we offered her the opportunity to come here.

And she declined a second time. No excuse for that, in our opinion. Citizens have the right to be able to examine the candidates that are here for public office.

That said, I'll let Mr. Gorham introduce himself. And then Kathy Kulik, who is the vice chair of the HRA Roundtable. And then we have other people in the room.

And anyone in the audience who would like to ask a question, you can raise your hand. And you can do that with the Zoom tools at the bottom. And we can just put it in the chat.

And we'll recognize you in order to offer a question or make a comment. So I'll start with having Mr. Gorham introduce himself and explain why he thinks that he's a good candidate for you to vote for in the 21st district election. Thank you.

If you want to follow any details about some of the things I'm saying, you can go to votegorham.com. I've got a copy of the introductory letter that I sent out to the population that votes in the 2023 primary. Not everybody. And other things that have come up.

I'm not quite a Twitter person yet. And I'm not quite. I used to be a Facebook person until I learned how that's just insane.

So I'm not going back to that stuff. I'm trying to keep things under control. When I started, I tried to focus some of my missions on various things.

People said, you got to have some bullet points. Keep it simple for most people to remember. And that is controlling data center sprawl.

I want to protect and control election day that possibly could start with Trump's executive order working with some of the things that he started there. But I've always been actively interested in that. One of the biggest constituents that we have is the Manassas battlefield.

And as long as I've been living here in the district since 2000, I've been active protecting and advocating for the battlefield. Going back to one of the first things, which you can find details about in the letter, is the Davis Track proposal that saved 136 acres of battlefield land. Bob Sutton, the superintendent at the time, said, I usually hear from these people and then they go away.

But he just kept coming back. And that project took several years to accomplish. And it was successful.

I did not end up being the sole person, but I got it going. I got a contract on the property. And a lot of people in the neighborhood, some of the states, they kicked in a lot of their retirement funds to save that project, along with American Battlefield Trust, which used to become Civil War Battlefield Trust.

Since then, more recently, can I get one of those waters? Thank you, ma'am. Since then, more recently, I've tried doing a pro se case against the Prince William Board of Supervisors. Back in December of 23, I came very close, had the case that I put out there on an expedited review in front of the Virginia Supreme Court, and could have possibly deferred that hearing until the new chair took over, DeShondra Jefferson, and we wouldn't have a lot of the problems we have right now.

Judicial efficiency might have been a good thing. But in between that, I've done a lot of things in the county, in the district especially. The incumbent delegate, Josh Thomas, moved to the district to get elected.

He really doesn't know the district. He has a lot of party line issues that he sticks to. And I admit that I'm more focused on certain things that are in the district.

The data center thing is one. And I'm trying to look at this in a way that we can do better. Josh Thomas had a bill that was allowed to get past the barriers, voting barriers and committees and so on.

And Governor Youngkin vetoed it with changing it from shallows to maize. You've all heard about that. And making it so it had to pass over two years.

That would have, in some people's minds, severely crippled it. But in reality, it would have been an improvement. And I saw a decision made on their part.

We're not going to try to solve the problem. We're going to use this as a hammer to beat up Governor Youngkin and make it a campaign issue, perhaps, for the next governor. How do we replace a Republican governor? So they're going to try doing the same things over and over again.

And I want to come up with some different solutions. I have some ideas. Unlike a lot of candidates for delegate, I am going to publish or have an active working list of things that I want to work on and get passed and discuss that in the open.

When I win in November, I will have a month to get my legislation, or everyone will have a month to get their legislation done and ready to go the first week of December. And if you want something done that year, you've got to be ready to go. And I'm not going to sit around like a typical freshman delegate and get nothing done.

I'm going to do my darndest in my history of doing things that are a little bit unorthodox, brave, different approaches is what I want you to look at when you see the two of us, three of us, who are on the ballot and decide who do you think is going to be able to get these things done. It's not a Republican or a Democrat issue, the data center thing. It's who wants to control them and who has the best ideas.

Basically, in Richmond, they've been trying to find a one-size-fits-all for the whole state. That means that people in southwest Virginia are going to have to vote for it as well as people up here in northern Virginia. And that's not going to happen.

So I think my focus would be to try to give localities more control so they can fine-tune. A good example came up recently, and that's the noise ordinance. Give the local localities more tools and teeth that they can apply locally so someone in southwest Virginia is voting for this.

They're not committing themselves to such high standards, perhaps. But it gives those that want the standards higher the opportunity to control it. Right now, our hands are tied.

I also want to talk about there's certain things that states can do to help our federal constitution. This gets complicated, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it. But states have the power to push Congress in a direction that would be good, and perhaps in support of Donald Trump's efforts.

Controlling some of the things, federal overreach, controlling fiscal irresponsibility, term limits are some of the things that can be discussed. And that's a whole subject we could spend the whole day on that. I have adapted a resolution that has been used in the past that gives legislators a little more comfort where we're not calling for their convention.

We're calling for Article V changes, and that can be done either way, our normal way that we're used to, or through a convention. But usually a threat of a convention is enough, can be enough, to force Congress to act where they might not. You might not find Congress willing to impose term limits.

You might not find Congress willing to put fiscal limitations on themselves. I think that's pretty obvious. And those things can be imposed upon them through amendments that are born in a convention or the normal way we use through the typical way we've done our 27 so far.

I think I'll leave it at that. I know there may have been a time limit on that, but... No, you're fine. You're fine.

Before we go to some questions, Greg, I'd like to recognize that Jen Wall arrived. Jen is the Gainesville District School Board representative, and I can tell you from my experience in watching her in taking care of the students in the Gainesville District and protecting every student in Prince William County, she's done an extraordinary job. And while she's not a candidate on this ballot, she will be in the future, and we'll look forward to the time when we can have a forum like this.

But it would be incredibly astounding to me if anyone wanted to run against her, because this is a woman who has dedicated her life to protecting these students and having children that have gone through the Prince William County school system, and I have grandchildren that are on their way through that now. She's been a great advocate for and protector of the rights of students and parents to make decisions about what's happening in those local schools. So, Jen, thank you very much for being here.

We appreciate it. So, Greg, obviously we can start out with some of the less significant issues, but yet important, your view on the car tax and what you think the solution might be as we go forward here in relieving taxpayers from that burden. Well, I would be in favor of joining my fellow Republicans in Richmond to repeal it.

There's been efforts to repeal it, and I support that. It's not a subject that I'm obviously talking about in my bullets, but I definitely will go along. One of the things that I get questioned about is what about some of the things that the Republicans in Richmond are talking about.

And I would like to assure you that most of these things, if not all of them, I would definitely cooperate and collaborate with on that. So, if that's the way the party wants to run, then I would be certainly supportive of rolling it back. They're going to say, we need the money, and what do you do then? You've got to find is we'll give them some other money.

I guess that's the way it's been handled in the past. We'll take your tax away, but we'll find a way of funneling some money so the localities don't feel the budget burden. But they will find a way to get the money out of us one way or another, if it's the car tax or property tax.

You've got a divided legislature, closely divided, and those on the Democratic side argue that there needs to be additional taxation in order to fund some of the social service programs that are on their priority list. Obviously, that puts the car tax repeal in jeopardy. How would you think you might have a chance with a minority on the Republican side making any difference on the car tax? I would probably have to start making deals.

If the party has no control on that subject, I have a fear that we're going to be in that gridlock, and I hate that. A lot of good things get beat down just because you have a one-vote minority. Ideally, we can get a majority and control that, but without that control, it's going to be difficult.

Another issue, one of the byproducts of this big issue on data centers, is the clear influence that you have on local boards of county supervisors and town councils and cities in Virginia where you get these well-heeled, very well-funded industrial complexes like data centers come in and overwhelm these communities. We had examples here in Prince William County where you see the most extraordinary levels of financial contributions, both on the Republican and the Democratic side, where it just seems impossible for the average citizen to break through that kind of clutter when there's corruption that goes on at the local level. What, as a state legislator, would you look at to balance the scales to allow the citizens to have a greater voice? I think part of the problem here is the non-disclosures that the county is being forced to sign and or willingly signing, staff and so on.

I don't see the necessity to keep these things as secret. A lot of these non-disclosures that happen in real estate contracts prevents the sunshine from shining on the subject. The funding that these people are getting is just directly tied to that.

I would work to strengthen the FOIA laws or whatever avenue we have to get some of these secrecy caps, muzzles that people hide behind lifted. So it's more out in the open. It can't be held secret.

Would you support campaign funding restrictions? By clearly biased industrial projects like the data centers coming in, overwhelming, would you support any kind of restriction if they have a pending matter before the board? That's an obvious thing. I have watched hearings or committee meetings where that subject comes up and it drops as fast as you can imagine. It's the quickest thing to get crushed.

There's such a flexibility in what money can be done with their PACs, campaign funds passed along. I have heard discussion about possibly prohibiting participants in events like that from campaign donations and I would definitely support exploring that. One of the things I have problems with and one of the reasons I ran is everyone says you go talk to your legislator.

I have talked to my legislator and they have an agenda of what they want to do and really they're only listening to you because they have to. I'm trying to get some of these things out in the open. Greg, I'll follow up on that if I can.

We know that you can't restrict campaign funding, right? That's a constitutional right now, right? Whereas you can't prohibit people from contributing to campaigns. But I think what we possibly can do is prohibit legislators from voting on issues where they've received significant campaign contributions from a particular sector or a business that's going to be affected directly by a vote that you would take. So what steps would you take, assuming you're elected, to kind of push us in that direction where you would push for greater ethical controls on legislators to keep them from voting where they have a conflict of interest? I have asked to continue that thought I had earlier.

If I'm in office, I probably wouldn't be writing this legislation myself. Obviously, I want people to propose it to me and I would be the one that patrons it and so on. So I am willing to look at whatever comes before me.

I want to do something about it, but I can't draft it. I'm not going to be able to draft it. But I do support some type of limit.

I know locally we had issues with Pete Candland being involved, signing contracts, and that's one of the concerns. I have a statement here that kind of relates to that. Making those things sharper, easier to enforce, shine a light on it.

But I'm also open to hearing what should be tried. I'm very willing to do that kind of thing. So another collateral issue on this is that in an earlier case in the circuit court in Prince William County on the comprehensive plan amendment, the county defended itself about the discussions that were going on between the citizens appearing at a hearing and the responsibilities and burden that the Board of County Supervisors had.

And the county attorney stood in open court and said that it was the position of Prince William County that the assembly, the General Assembly, had only required that a microphone be provided. There was no requirement for any consideration of any public comment being made in a hearing, despite it might have been a 24-hour hearing in the case of the comprehensive plan amendment. It was close to that.

And yet their defense was they don't have to consider anything because at the end of that hearing, they immediately voted without any due consideration. So what's your position on that? And if you agree that that's not the right approach, what would you propose to tighten that up? That's interesting because when I was putting my case together back in 23, that was one of the key elements of it is these people are going to be sleep deprived. And if you're having a hearing, they have to be able to hear if they're mentally disabled because they've been sleep deprived.

That doesn't qualify as a hearing. And all the judge in my case had to do was say, Greg, that's a potential winning case. And because it's potentially winning, I'm not saying it will or will not win.

I need to hold this hearing from happening. So that was central point of my case is to try to convince the judge that a hearing is a two-way thing. It's not just a one-way thing.

That's where I stand. How to get there, other than my precedent that I might have set, is to be determined. Would you be thinking about proposing any sort of a limit on how long a hearing can go before there has to be a break? Most localities will, except ours for some reason, will not allow a hearing to go beyond, let's say, midnight.

And then they will continue the next day. Would that be something? Yes. I mean, to the extent I have that control, yes.

That just makes sense. Because people can't sit up there with toothpicks holding their eyelids open. Everyone else in the hearing room can go out and take a nap in the lobby.

But they can't. And that makes their thinking process down. So yes, it makes sense to do that.

Yes. So, by the way, I'm disappointed that Ms. Smith and Ms. Larson are not here. We didn't know how to get in touch with Ms. Larson, and Ms. Smith felt that some of our priorities were not priorities that she felt the voters of the 21st District would be interested in.

And that's just disappointing, because every group has its concerns. And certainly, residential quality of life, property value, all these things are very important to us. So for a candidate to assert that those things aren't important is really not very helpful.

But when you look at your potential job with the House of Delegates, down at the General Assembly, a casual observer might say, well, the General Assembly is really good at killing things. They're not really good at passing many good bills. And it's true.

They kill a lot of bills, a lot of them in subcommittee. So when you look at the things you might want to do, what would be your approach to getting some of these things out of committee? How would you work with other members of both the House and then also the Senate has to pass these things to before it goes to the governor? Would you have a, what's your thought? The problem I think I've seen is they are trying to force the whole state to do something. And to give localities that are more inclined to want to accept these things is what we need to do.

The Shells versus the Mays in the Bill 1601, I think it was. Um, that might have been a good bill with the Mays because it still allows localities to do some of the things. You're talking about Josh Thomas' bill.

Yeah, I hate to mention giving too much PR. The incumbent. What did he do wrong? What could, what should he have done to assure that that bill got the good? If I were him and I really wanted to solve the problem, I would have accepted the Mays and said, Governor, can we negotiate on the two term thing? And if that wasn't acceptable, I would have accepted the governor's veto as is.

So his rejection of the governor's terms was, you think, the problem? Yes. They took that as a way of saying our governor is against us. The mean old Governor Yonkin, Gigawatt Glenn, I think he's been nicknamed, voted or vetoed our bill.

In fact, I've gone to their legislative updates and they actually kind of joke about it as it's a little Christmas ornament they put on the tree, you know, even with the activity of what I just did. So let me ask one further question. We had a veto.

Let's just say that that was a Governor Spamburger giving you, setting those terms on a bill. Would you have? If it looked like a locality like House District 21 could benefit from it, I would definitely accept it. I'm not going to do it now.

I have to get down there and learn about all of the little chess pieces on three or four levels to deal with my party. But if it were me and I had a choice, I would say if it's helping our House District 21 and, you know, it's good, then I would go with it. There are going to be other things that are going to be proposed and maybe they'll get different hearing.

But it was in the Bull Run Women's Club forum, it came up, we need to flip to Republicans to get these things done. And the reality is that's not going to change. There's greed with R's and D's after their name.

It's not going to help. So you need to make it so more localities. So to that point, there are people who make the argument that Governor Youngkin is in the pocket of the data center industry all because of money and that his decisions about data center legislation and not only the vetoes but his guidance from his legislative arm all support the data industry and that he's laid out the red carpet and has supported incentives for them to come in without any restrictions.

I mean, it's awkward as a Republican, right? But you got a governor that is in their pocket, at least it appears to be. And that would be true, but he did offer the maize as opposed to the shells and Governor Winsome, Sears, I think may have a little different. I've approached her and I imagine once I win this primary, I'll get a lot of time with her to talk about some of these things.

This is an opportunity for her to take a lot of votes in Northern Virginia from either side, because right now I would have to think that Spanberger hasn't made an opinion, I haven't seen it yet, for or against. But if she could be flexible on this thing and if I can convince her that showing this flexibility, making localities more powerful, that would win a lot of election votes up here for her. Well, on that point, right now under existing Virginia law, if a data center or any other industrial complex wanted to come and place an operation in the state of Virginia, the state is required to deliver the power to the location where they're constructing these facilities.

And there is no requirement for the group, in this case the data centers, to pay for that. We as taxpayers, and now there are estimates that we're looking at 20 to 30 percent utility bill increases, electricity bill increases, all because of the data centers. And it seems like there ought to be a more rational policy if a data center operator elects to locate in Prince William County or in the state of Virginia, that they do so with the understanding that their enormous power demands have to be satisfied only with the cost being borne by the data center industry.

And yet we're left out in the lurch right now and we're facing, as consumers, as 21st District, fundamentally unfair, it appears. One of the things that I'm exploring on my list of 15 items is to look at something called the Texas model as far as how they distribute their power. Right now, Virginia, we've got Dominion and a few others.

Basically, it gives the consumer, the residential consumer in this case, a choice of who they're buying their power from. And that choice can be based on what the cost is being passed through by that company. If Haddow Electric Incorporated decided to offer rates to their customers, their residential rates, that did not incorporate the infrastructure costs, then that might make your company pretty powerful and it would let the customers vote with their pocketbook.

Right now, we have no choice or few choices. There are some choices in Virginia, but it would require a little restructuring of our legislation in Richmond. That's something I'd like to look into.

I know the Texas model has been adapted and replicated in other states, and I'd like to look at that. Competition could bring those costs down. Well, competition might, but the burden, just the straight-up proposition, I'm going to locate a data center that's going to require the construction of a new nuclear plant or a huge coal-fired plant, depending on how the politics go, and the cost of that and the transmission lines is shared right now with every electrical consumer.

My question was, would you support legislation that requires them to pay? Absolutely. I'm all for not putting the cost of their folly on our backs. Another issue that is a primary concern is the environmental impact that comes from the location of data center facilities where the current grid that supports the entire Eastern Seaboard has already served notice that they cannot supply the existing electrical needs for data center operations that are in operation now, and that they will have scheduled brownouts.

What that means is that the biggest energy hogs, the data centers, will have to shut down voluntarily, but they cannot stop. So they have backup generators, diesel-fired generators. They're anywhere from 50 to 100 supporting each data center.

They immediately get fired up. They're there for emergencies and for these kind of planned brownouts, and that will have an enormous environmental impact with the diesel pollution. When you look at the Prince William County evaluation of the impacts of the data centers on our communities, the planning staff had no experience in this.

They didn't think about, well, how are you going to get the diesel fuel to those plants? Are you going to have tank farms? Are you going to have—obviously, you're going to have to have a huge impact on the transportation system because you're talking about diesel fuel trucks running up and down roads delivering to these data centers, and then the output, the output being the diesel particulates that get into the pollution that we won't see a blue sky in those brownout periods because of the enormous number of data centers and facilities and the 50 to 100 diesel generators fired up during those times. The noise ordinance would have to do some of that work. It can.

One of the concerns I have is a lot of the legislation coming out is preventative before the things are approved. I'd like to see some stiff penalties, and not with the police officer out there with a sound gun trying to check these things and so on. I'd like to see regular routine measurements of the air, the water, and so on.

These data center people aren't stupid. If you tell them what their requirements are, they will meet it, and if you're hitting them in the profit, they will adjust to make their profit right. They don't want to waste time piddling around.

If you tell them with certainty what their requirements are, I would like to explore this notion of we have to commit to them the power, whether we can do it or not. You cannot get blood out of a turnip. We have to find some way of being able to tell them no.

I always go back to this notion the rural precinct was always using a sewer limitation to block some of their residential developments. I'd like to see a guarantee of the power being available before these things were even approved. I don't know how that can be done, but that's where my mind is.

I want to go to the direction where they don't just automatically get to say I want everything, and we have to provide it, whether that's even possible or not, which it isn't. It's not sustainable. So a Republican favoring regulations.

This is an interesting thing. But to protect your citizens, I'm hearing that you're willing to do that. I'm doing this for the House District 21.

So on that score, the former, and I emphasize former, Chairman of the Board of County Supervisors, when the evaluation of the impacts on data center placement in the western area of Prince William County, specifically the Prince William Digital Gateway where you have the watershed impact that services the entire Occoquan watershed, hundreds of thousands of people down in the Occoquan area are serviced by that. The water study was critically important, and you had Chair Wheeler say, well, okay, she did not want to delay this project, obviously. That was in her political interest.

She then said, well, we'll do the water study, but we're going to go ahead and approve the project first. I mean, I almost closed my eyes and saw Nancy Pelosi saying, let's pass and we'll read the bill later. This is what they were doing.

So would you favor restrictions on a Board of County Supervisors that they cannot, they cannot approve projects until they have fully investigated the impacts? Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I don't understand how it got there.

So, I mean, the answer is yes. It's a simple yes. They didn't get passed because the legislation wasn't presented in a way that the state can approve it, and that's a simple matter.

There were a lot of good bills that were presented, but they all got beat back party reasons, you know. But we can try them again, perhaps giving localities a little more control, perhaps giving citizens a little bit more control, if possible, to circumvent the reluctant Boards of Supervisors. You know, they're going to do stupid things if they want to do stupid things.

I have a question I'd like to, kind of goes back to the car tax discussion about how do you replace revenue. And also, one thing that legislative bodies are at their zenith regarding power is their taxing authority. They can literally pass any tax rate they want as long as they get enough votes to do it.

It's really unchallengeable in court, at least as far as my experience is. What about levying a state tax on data centers operating in Virginia to replace the lost revenue when the car tax is hopefully repealed? Is that something that's going to be our industry? Yeah. Now, the problem is, is like we had here in Prince William, they'll say, well, we get these data centers, we'll have all the sex revenue and we'll give you all residential cuts.

Yeah. And then you saw what happened recently. They said, no, no, we're not.

We were just kidding. We're not giving you any cuts. So how do you get around that? You know, I look at creative ideas on how to ensure those type of things get back to the citizens, something that if the governments want to invoke this tax rate, they have to commit to some other project.

For example, I go to Fairfax and Loudoun when they did their Route 28 upgrades. They had taxes on the industrial or commercial base along that route, along that corridor. And those taxes were used specifically to fund the improvements.

Maybe there is a way of taxing the data centers locally or giving the localities a tool that they can have, we'll call it the Target Industry Tax Overlay District, where they would tax these data centers. Additionally, the way we're taxing data centers with this tax is laughable. It's so primitive.

It's so out of date. It's like our noise ordinance. It's ridiculous how foolish it is.

And they're laughing themselves silly at these data center corporate offices and how they're being taxed. There's this depreciation loophole where they have a chassis in these racks and racks and buzzing things, and they pull boards out of it, but the chassis serial number stays the same. And the depreciation of that is going down to zero, so they're paying hardly any taxes.

But the upgrade has been made. That's silliness. They've got to get around that.

There's also this exemption. Most of the federal customers are trying, even though they're not owners, the battlefield owns the land, therefore they don't pay the tax on the land, property tax. But some of these data center landlords are trying to, and apparently succeeding, at getting their taxes abated because they claim they have government tenants, and that's got to be stopped, too.

They're saying, we're going to get all these taxes, and they never materialize. So you're suggesting a different taxing method rather than C&P and an addition to the process. Much different, and they certainly can afford it.

So that'll be an interesting position for a Republican to take, increasing taxes in general. But when we're talking about getting rid of the most hated tax amongst residents of the state of Virginia, it's maybe a little easier to sell because of the... Sure. That's a good way to approach it.

That's the schmooze that you need. Well, so that leads me to another question that's related, and that is that because the data center industry can afford to pay such high land prices, certainly they'd like to pay less, it's making it very difficult for other businesses to locate, particularly in Prince William County, where the last sale of 104 acres was sold for $3.75 million per acre to Microsoft. Well, what other business, service, or anything, what really? What other business? Even SW Rogers is on contract there to sell out their, I don't know if that's their headquarters next to Jiffy Lube.

How long will Jiffy Lube Live be able to hold out when they're surrounded by data centers? That was recently in the press reported. So as residents of this county, every service provider and business are going to move out because they can't afford to operate. And that causes... We don't have a diverse economic base.

That really harms us all. I've seen that firsthand. I had a neighbor who had a business in an industrial area.

He wanted to buy the lot next door. After the data center phase craze came in, all of a sudden he doesn't have the option to buy the property next door because the price is just insane. So I don't know how to attack that, but I recognize that as a problem.

Okay. So the incumbent right now obviously has, I would guess you consider a weak record on some things. Else, why would you be running? What would you identify as the main differences between the incumbent and you? And why would voters want to have you as the representative as opposed to the current incumbent? Well, he doesn't know the district well.

That's already been said. But I think his approach to things, he may have good intentions, but his approach is not necessarily successful. For example, he'll talk about his bill that he got to limit some of the computer time or app time kids.

And that was a good accomplishment. He talks eloquently about how we can't limit speech, freedom of speech, if you tack it this way or that way. I've been to one of his legislative updates, and he speaks well about that.

The problem is implementing that, it's easy to evade if they go with the current methods. So he may think he's got some good ideas, but his implementation of them are not good. I think he's a little too married to his party line on a lot of the issues.

And he's stuck there where he's kind of stuck in that illogical world that he has to live of his party. And I think I can beat that. I think I can come up with some different approaches.

They claim that they're just going to try the same things over again. I'm not going to do that. I want to do things that are going to pass and succeed as opposed to just try to hammer the same thing and force this eternal scrum.

Whoever has one more belly button in the house, in the chamber, I want to get something actually accomplished where it wants to be accomplished. Some parts of the state may love that craziness, but I'd like to see if we can get things done. And I really want to work with the existing legislatures.

Senator Rome, it's not up for election, but I think there's a lot of things that Senator Rome and I agree on. And I think we could be very potent getting things done. As a Republican and a Democrat, it's nice that our districts overlap a lot, almost identical.

Obviously, the Senator's district, for population reasons, is a little bigger. But since we were redistricted, we don't have pieces in Fairfax County and all over the place. It's a literal almost one-to-one, and we can be very effective.

I look forward to working with Senator Rome on a lot of things. So we're going to cross lines. In that same line of thinking, what distinguishes you as one of the three, the two empty chairs that are here? They can't defend themselves.

Tell the voters out there what distinguishes you from them as the better candidate on the Republican ticket and why they should vote for you on, is it the 17th? Is it the primary? Yep, yep. Thank you. Tuesday.

I have done things since I moved here in 2000. I have tried things. I have stepped out, and I have done things that most others wouldn't.

I have tenacity. I get my teeth into something, and I will resolve it. A lot of people right now would not even be talking about the legislation they want to do.

But I'm going to put it out there and see who salutes. Raise it up the flag and see if it salutes. I have certain things I want to get done.

I'm going to do my darndest to get it done. If that works with any Republican or Democrat, I'm going to get it done. And it may not be a conventional approach, but I have a history of trying things and succeeding at things.

That tells me what might work, what might not work. But it gives you a confidence to try things where I don't think they have that confidence or that experience. They're more focused on central issues.

The third candidate, I don't know where she stands on anything except a very generic mailer. That's Ms. Larson you're talking about? Yeah. I try not to give too much name.

I think they're empty suits. I mean, they're empty chairs. Ms. Larson and Ms. Smith are not here.

We can tell who they are. For example, Ms. Smith makes a big deal about how her focus is on the Republican Party platform and it's really focused on social issues. You've got abortion and transgender and that kind of thing.

Where do you stand on the Republican platform? I'm going to be largely in favor of the Republican platform. I'm not out here to compete against it. My motivation for getting involved was not to be in the Republican platform, but was to get certain specific things done.

I have 15 things as a delegate that I can put my name on. I'm going to do that. I will certainly vote with the party on a lot of these things, but I'm not making that my... I won't be the one carrying the flag on those things, but I will certainly be in the crowd behind them, supporting them.

Those are my motivations, but you can count on me as a vote to support their things. My name probably wouldn't. I'd be a co-patron maybe.

But again, I only have 15 things that I can put my name on and I've got to be careful how many commitments I can make. Some of these things might be combinable, but I'm trying to not overcommit myself. Well, good.

As we finish up here, if anyone that is listening online has any questions, you can raise your hand or unmute yourself and ask away. We invite you to do that if you would like to do so. As we're waiting for people to contemplate that, whether they do or don't, one of the challenges about public service is always the commitment that someone makes in order to fulfill the responsibilities in their office.

This is a part-time legislature. Are there any issues with your work or in your personal life that would not allow you to fulfill those responsibilities, despite it being a part-time legislature? It really is a day-by-day job. I had an IT career started in 1987.

I retired in 2015. Part of that was deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq, 27 months over there. I didn't understand the cloud, but right now I am, quote, unemployed.

I retired when I learned that I could. Not necessarily—I did the math, and the math said I could retire. My commitments right now could be full-time to this.

Obviously, that includes my life if I have things I'm responsible for at my home, but I'm not barred from participating. I will be down there full-time. I will be working on these things full-time.

I'm not—I'm retired from my IT career, so I can have the freedom that others might not have, that have to go to court for their job or have to do whatever fill-in-the-blank job they may have. I will be probably a full-time legislator. Once you're retired, you kind of weave it all together.

It becomes a—you're not punching a clock, to put it that way. You do certain things when time available and so on, so I have a lot more time to do things. Well, I'm personally looking forward to joining you in that.

Thank you, obviously. Any other questions here on the group that are here? I do, and I want to encourage anyone that is joining us via Zoom or any members of the press, a question at all, please don't hesitate. Raise your hand or just jump in, and we'd like to have you take the opportunity to ask Greg any questions that you'd like.

But I have a question about the EV mandate and the governor signing, I believe, an executive order—if I'm wrong, please, anybody, correct me—to decouple us from the California mandates on electric vehicles by 2035 or something. That being an executive order, obviously, if, let's say, it's Governor Spanberger, should take over in January, that might be in jeopardy, and I think that many Virginians would not like that to happen. So what would your thought be on how that might get through the General Assembly? This may solve your problem.

Just recently, President Trump had a big event where he was talking about not having to write his own executive order. So somehow, the Congress circumvented those requirements or nullified or canceled or terminated those California issues. And that probably should trickle down, I would imagine, based on how I understand it, down to Virginia.

So that's probably been solved for. So I think one of the key issues that all of the constituents that you are seeking votes from, the economy is a big issue. And we live in a state that we would like to say is fairly conservative on tax policy.

There's a good argument that maybe we aren't, and that's just a lot of fall draw. What's your feeling generally about what your goals would be in order to improve the economy in the state of Virginia? You obviously have a big challenge with the cuts at the federal level in an area that is heavily dependent on federal employment. And you're going to see the effects of that disproportionately impacting Virginia, where it may not on the other areas.

In my IT career, I've been working embedded with government contractors, and change is not easy. But I believe in my gut, most of these people, they've got a long grace period. I believe most of these people will find much more happiness and peace escaping the government the federal government.

A lot of them I worked with would write on their whiteboards, I have 182 days until I can retire, where my leave kicks, my six years of leave, I can start, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think it will pay out, pan out better for them. I don't think in the long term, it's going to be bad.

People need to be and want to be productive. I think a lot of these people that are suffering because they can't retire, we'll look at this as a positive thing. That may not answer the tax question.

If the data centers come in, and they're our saving grace, and it was a good observation, a way of presenting it, use their increased revenue to offset some of these other taxes. That's something that I think should be locked in. The problem is, is anytime they get more money, they don't cut taxes.

Finding a way to lock those cuts in is what you need to do. Perhaps the best way to do that is give them less avenues to tax on. So the meals tax, the car tax, they just keep coming up with these new taxes as a spigot that they can turn on.

When this one starts to run dry, they just open this one a little bit more. If you take the spigot and cut it off at the wall, then it's more obvious where they're getting their money from. I'm all for it.

I'd like to see Virginia become a place where retirees can stay rather than being taxed and pushed out. I'm a retiree, and the taxes are crazy. I can afford it right now, but I'd like to see it where we draw, attract people on a deep tax cuts for retirees.

Sure. It'd be so fun for the younger group. So one of the questions online was, does Mr. Gorham have any conflicts of interest that would prevent him from fully representing his constituents? Are there any areas in your life that would bar you from voting or advocating on any issues? Well, thank you for bringing that up.

I've given the other two candidates several opportunities to acknowledge this, so I'll just read it. Regarding data centers, arguably the biggest local topic, I can state I have not signed a sales contract or any legal agreement that prevents me from fully discussing data centers. As we know from prior experience with our county supervisors, Candland and possibly now Gordy, an official who has entered contracts with data centers or entered negotiations may well be disqualified to participate in policy deliberations related to data centers.

I have not signed a nondisclosure agreement, and I will not sign any nondisclosure agreement that will prevent me from fully engaging this data center subject in Richmond. I am requesting all three candidates make a similar statement. Alongside that, I will patron legislation that addresses the nondisclosure practice of violation of FOIA that has been abused to silence elected officials and staff.

I made that statement at the Bull Run Republican Women's Forum on May 7th, and I have yet to see an answer. Every time I bring it up with the other candidates in the room, those answers are deflected. They're not answered.

The issue is ignored. Mr. Rourke, if I can ask a follow-up. The question was about conflicts of interest broadly and not specifically with respect to data centers, which I understand is a big issue, probably the most pressing issue facing western Prince William County right now.

But other than that, are there any other areas, hot topics, where you foresee you might have a conflict of interest? If there are, what's your approach to handling those potential conflicts after you take office? I can't see any areas. I'm financially independent, meaning I have all the money I need to live the rest of my life in comfort. So I'm not going to be vulnerable to someone throwing a sack of cash at my table.

I can't think of anything at all. I'm thinking of my horses and stuff like that. I'm trying to find something to give you the positive, but I can't.

I can't think of anything. Okay, any other questions anyone has want to put in the chat or just speak up? I got a question, Matt. Fire away, Ricky.

Yeah, Greg. I realize that no two individuals will agree on everything when a topic comes up, but there comes a time when an individual has to make a decision based on their conscience. And the point I'm making is when you run for office, most people run to get elected.

And if they get elected, they want to be re-elected. Whereas sometimes the focus should be on just doing the right thing, making the right decisions, making the right vote. Where do you stand on if the rubber hit the road and you're forced with having to make the decision that's best for your district compared to just going along to do the vote and pass the vote because that's where the party's at? Where would you stand? I'm putting myself out there.

Maybe this answers your question. I'm putting myself out there with what I want to do and what I'm going to try to do. I am avoiding with all my might using party line platitudes where people say what the red meat issues are and hopefully that generates enough interest that I may have to address some of those things.

But I am not looking to make this a forever job. I'm running for one term and we'll see how that goes. If I'm successful and it's a lot of fun, I will continue.

But I will vote with what's right for the House District 21. And that may ruffle some feathers, but I'm going to do that first. On most issues, that's going to be common sense stuff that the House District 21 people would like.

Do you have a specific question? A specific issue? I'm not looking to make this a forever career. We have to do this every two years, which means you're probably campaigning again the next year right away. But I'm going to vote with what I said I'm going to do.

And I don't see anything that will come in front of me that will be a conflict with what I feel. Well, I don't have a specific question. It's just that I know people run on certain points.

They say what they will do and won't do, what they stand for. But when they actually get in office and they get to mingling with other pressure, exactly, other delegates, they tend to waver from what they stood on and what they said and their promises. I want to hear from you that regardless of that pressure, what you run on is what you stand on and that those that vote for you can believe in that because too often we vote for people and they get in there and they do something different, totally different than what they said they were going to do.

Worse, they do the opposite or at least they do nothing. Yes. Politicians do that? Quite often.

Yes, I'm going to do my darndest to stick to what I say I'm going to do. And I'm not going to deviate from that. I'm not going to reverse my opinions on the things I say I'm going to do.

But I'm open to hearing things. The Republican caucus is probably going to put some influence and pressure on me to go along with certain things, but I don't see any of the things that they're going to put pressure on me that conflict yet with what I believe in. And I know things evolve, your decision making evolve, your experiences evolve and sometimes you may have to change something that you said based on experiences and other factors.

So that's understandable. But the basis premise of what you stand on, I think is what I mean. I'm troubled.

I will leave names and issues out, but I'm troubled by people that have had support from groups that have an issue and they get support from that group and all of a sudden they get in office and they sit on their hands. Or worse, oppose it. And I'm not going to do that with the things that I said that I'm going to do.

OK. Thank you. Greg, thank you very much for being with us.

We'll give you three minutes if you want to take it to close out. Well, thanks for this time. Every day in this campaign, miracles happen.

I get smarter. I witness it. I don't know exactly how I'm going to manage through to some of these issues.

It's an emotional roller coaster. I'm learning a lot. I thank Sahar and I even thank Xanthe Larson for signing up because this primary is making me stronger.

It's necessary to face the incumbent. I think I've got a lot of courage. I think I can demonstrate that by the things I've tried before.

I think I'm going to continue with that attitude. I look forward to getting this job. It's not going to be easy.

I know there are going to be hard times where I'm attacked, misunderstood and so on. I have a nice endorsement from a Dr. Alt on my website, and she puts it pretty clearly. I might have read that if I had pulled it out, but I've read it before.

You can go see it at VoteGordon.com. Thank you for your support, and I'm looking forward to making it through Election Day. If you want to help, I need volunteers. People always give me suggestions on what to do.

They say shoe leather is going to win this thing. I need people to wear the shoes. So if you're interested in helping, please do.

So far, the finance part has been done so well. But the next campaign, they spent $3.5 million in the Stirrup-Thomas race, the combination of them, PACs and everything. Obviously, I'm going to need help out of Richmond's caucus to do that, if that's the kind of thing.

But I think they waste a lot of money on TV. Broadcasting TV ads to Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia and D.C. is a waste of money. Huge financial waste, and that's stupid.

But once this primary is over, this is going to be a very different race. All of a sudden, money is going to start pouring in, and I'm going to get a lot of that pressure to switch up or do whatever. So I'm looking forward to it.

It's going to be a great experience. Thank you. Well, thank you for joining us on this forum.

We will be following up on the absence of the others and informing people about their unwillingness to have this discussion. Thank you for your courage to be here and face this questioning. Thanks again to Jen Wall, our magnificent school board representative from the Gainesville District, who deserves everyone's support, and will continue to do that good.

And thanks to all of you who listened. This will be available online. We'll send out the link.

We encourage everyone to get out and vote if you have not done so already in this primary, because you can complain later, but your complaint rings hollow if you don't participate in this process. We encourage everyone to do that. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Thank you, Greg. Your time came up today.