Keep data centers off fairgrounds
Our fairgrounds are not a data center site.
The Ventura County Fairgrounds board is now publicly considering a proposal from Global Stack USA, and every Ventura County resident should be paying attention.
Global Stack, a Santa Ana company incorporated just this March, wants to place what it calls “edge computers,” along with a parking garage and helipad, at as many as 70 state fairgrounds, including ours. The company frames this as emergency infrastructure. But the computing units it has pitched elsewhere draw 8 to 10 megawatts, roughly the electricity use of thousands of homes, and on every non-emergency day they would sell computing capacity for profit. Whatever the label, that is a data center.
The terms deserve scrutiny too. The Star reported
that an early company document described a 100-year lease on about five acres of our oceanfront public land. And the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the state official who oversees California’s fairs has promoted Global Stack to fair boards while his daughter works for the company.
Other communities have noticed. Calistoga walked away. Fair boards in Tulare and Solano counties tabled the idea after public opposition.
I understand the fairgrounds face real financial pressure, and I support finding new revenue. But Seaside Park was given to the public for recreation and community, not for industrial computing locked up for a century.
I urge the board to reject this proposal, and I urge readers to follow this issue closely and send their views to the board at info@venturacountyfair.org.
John Groot, Camarillo
Don’t buy Trump’s untruths
Our eyes are open and our ears are tuned into what we are hearing. What else is Donald Trump planning on for his next snow job perpetrated on the American public? Get your snow shovels and snowplows ready for the next untruth that surely will be coming.
From his latest $5,000 bribe to each adult American, his blatant and ignorant statements that the invasion of Iran is not a war, his insulting statements about the Abraham Lincoln nuclear-powered aircraft carrier marines and crew serving 286 days without leave and the absolute crazy tariffs on our virtually closest ally, what’s next?
I just heard him make a fictitious statement about how successful our economy is. I’m sure the exact opposite is actually the truth for everyone. If paying five or six dollars-plus for a gallon of gas and watching the final price of a bag of groceries almost 25% to 30% higher than a year ago doesn’t get to your commonsense brain you need an eye-opener. Hold on, I’m sure DJT will toss out another untruth in an attempt to steal your vote.
Please don’t succumb to his untruths and belligerent tactics. The greatest majority of us know right from wrong and have the ability to make that knowledge evident by our vote at the ballot box which would make great headway in writing the wrongs that have prevailed. His snow jobs are melting with his additional untruth.
P.S.: To the coward, who sent me a threatening and rude letter to me in response to my last letter to the editor, you don’t scare me from speaking the truth.
Sharon leMay, Ventura
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Don't let data center on fairgrounds, stop believing Trump | Letters
