Letter to the Editor: “We Stood Up.”

On the 27th of January, the Planning & Zoning commission for the city of Fayetteville held a meeting regarding a few different things. 

The first item on their agenda detailed Corvus Investment Group’s request for the city to annex additional land bordering the northern city limits so they could build a new series of developments for retail and warehouse space. Now, as any engaged citizen would do, I did a simple Google search of the group and visited their website. 

Needless to say, I was shocked. 

On the very first—and only—page of their website, they detailed in plain English that they, “enable… qualifying investors to defer current capital gains [tax] and eliminate future capital gains [tax].” 

Reading that statement, I ask you the same question I asked myself when I first read that sitting in the meeting:

“Is this a good representation of the values of honesty and good faith business that our city and county claim to hold?”

When I hear our city leaders wax poetic about how they want to grow sustainably and how they claim to hold our best interests in mind, inviting a company that openly states how they would evade paying taxes to our city is not what I first think of. 

Count this as strike #1.

The next item on their agenda was an expansion of the hospital. Nothing too outrageous about any of it, except maybe the lack of a proper parking garage to handle the increased traffic of the already busy hospital. Annoying, but not as bad as what was brought before the commission next.

Now onto strike #2

The last item on the commission’s agenda for the meeting was a proposal for a new data center. You can imagine the response of the audience in that room. Now, let me systematically break down, in four points, why it is an absolute slap in the face to every Fayette County citizen that this proposal was even being entertained.

First, no one and their mother wants another data center. Even if you just moved here yesterday, you would be able to see how every single person in that audience saw red the moment the men in suits stood up to speak. 

Second, is the horrific impact this would have on our environment and resources. Several, and I mean several, people stood in front of the panel and commented on the unsustainable use of electricity, water, and the less-than-thought-out ecological impact it would have. 

Third, the plans fail to even map out any benefit this new ugly eye-sore-of-a-building would even have. Besides the price hikes that every resident would feel in their utility bill, the entire place would only employ 25-50 people—with the latter figure only there if we’re lucky. Knowing the greed of these data centers, they would still find a way to short-staff the place. 

Fourth, and my personal comment, being how the whole A.I market is a bubble waiting to pop. To the laughter—and maybe slight existential dread—of the present audience, I stated how I was born in 2007 for my argument. And what came after 2007? Well, obviously the 2008 housing market crash and subsequent recession. And why did that happen? Because the housing market had become a speculative bubble that got too big, which caused it to pop. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how that majorly sucked to live through. No one likes recessions. Now, the reason I said all of this is because the massive amounts of A.I investments are all relying on speculative profits. Ninety-five percent of all businesses that invested into A.I. failed to see any profit succeeding investment in 2025. The CEO of Microsoft just recently pleaded with the public to actually use A.I. tools for productivity or else the sector would lose the public permission they need to access the resources to run it—and it again doesn’t take a genius to know how horrible A.I. is at “productivity”. At the beginning of this year, OpenAI, one of the first companies to emerge with a specialization solely in A.I., is projected to lose 16 billion with a B dollars in just 2026 alone, and by 2027 will run out of funding entirely. Which, as an addendum to that, Nvidia just bailed out OpenAI for 20 billion dollars. If none of that screams, “speculative bubble waiting to pop,” then I don’t know what does. 

And would you like to know the response we got to all of our comments and concerns? 

…

That’s right! Nothing!

We got absolutely no coherent response or answer to any of what I just typed out! Isn’t that fun?

No, but on a serious note, all of what we said was completely brushed over. Concerns about utility usage? Well, they really hammered home about the closed loop water cooling system they had all planned out—and of course any question of how much it’d take to fill up/replace the water or where the old water would be drained promptly ignored. Any financial benefit we as residents would receive? Again, crickets. Anything at all on how the building would just end up abandoned after five years when the market bubble pops? The silence was deafening. Response to the fact that absolutely no one else in that room wanted to see a data center in our city? “But we could just paint it a pretty color.” They were promptly laughed at. 

But that’s not the end of it.

Remember the first item on their agenda about the crow people wanting to annex new land? Yeah, well, the proposed plot for the data center is right next to that land. What’s to say that the commission and council wouldn’t pull a fast one on us and use it to expand the plans for the data center? It was all lined up a bit too perfectly, and I wasn’t the only one that found that suspicious. Which, just as a side note, did you know that the petitioning company has dealings with BlackRock? Yikes on bikes is the only PG thing I can say.

Now, to tie back to the title of this editorial, all of this does actually have a happy ending. Going against the large bolded words on the floor-to-ceiling projector screen that read out, “Recommend favorably to [city] council,” the commission voted to not take the proposed plans for the data center—but not after almost going through with the recommendation, getting yelled at by us in the audience, and then reversing course with their tail tucked between their legs. Thunderous applause erupted at their refusal of the data center. After an hour and a half of back to back public comment ripping into the plans for the data center, and multiple people expressing their seething anger, we got the bare minimum of what amounted to when your math teacher would say to you, “go back and show your work,” before giving back your paper. 

While it’s a small win, it’s a win nonetheless. 

We fought back and stood our ground against what would’ve harmed our community.

And we will continue to look after our people first before profits. 

Thank you for reading, 

Ayla Mount

Fayetteville, GA