The United Labor Council of Schuylkill County’s “Meet the Candidates Night” at the Pottsville Zone on Thursday wasn’t billed as a debate, but attendees did hear different points of view from two speakers vying to represent the 123rd district in the state House of Representatives.
In separate speeches and Q&A sessions, Republican incumbent Tim Twardzik, of Frackville, and his Democratic challenger, Palo Alto Mayor John Deatrich, mainly focused on their own qualifications and positions.
Another State Rep. candidate, Democrat Tina Burns of the 124th District, also addressed the union members and answered questions. Though invited, her incumbent opponent, Republican Jamie Barton, did not attend, but Burns and Twardzik did exchange words.
On Hyperscale Data Centers
Although Deatrich said data centers could help our communities, he stressed the need for caution.
“We can’t just allow a data center to come in and say, ‘We’re going to be good neighbors; trust us,’” he said. “If they’re going to use excessive power and we’re going to need to update the grid, they’ve got to pay for it.”
He also raised questions about these projects’ impact on infrastructure and emergency services. In a worst-case scenario, he said, a full-on fire at a data center is like a meltdown at a nuclear power plant.
“If it’s possible, it needs to be discussed, and I don’t think it has,” he said. “… All that stuff has to be taken care of before we greenlight this stuff throughout our entire community because we get one chance to get it right, and we have an entire lifetime to deal with the consequences if we get it wrong.”
Twardzik, a Schuylkill Economic Development Corp. board member, said he toured a Virginia data center with a system that could detect a little smoke and douse the fire immediately.
“We just need good owners, good builders to be up front, and that’s what we are doing with our SEDCO operation,” he said.
He said Nebius’ proposed project in the Highridge Business Park in Butler Township is “a great opportunity for the county” and that the developer is dealing with noise issues and using a closed-loop system that won’t drain the water supply.
“Instead of having 1,100 or 1,200 trucks a day of traffic (from a warehouse), you’re going to have 100 people coming to work, getting a high-paid job,” he said. “But before that, there’s going to be three years’ worth of union work building a giant data center.”
Twardzik said he doesn’t want data centers on farmland or residential areas, adding that there are enough brownfields and industrial land for them.
The subject of data centers didn’t come up when Burns addressed the attendees, but she later said she supports a mandatory pause, along with legislation at the local, state, and federal levels.
“We all need to be asking and demanding an answer for why we need so many,” she said. “The U.S. already has over 5,000, which is a great deal more than any other country.”
Nondisclosure Agreements
Both Burns and Deatrich said they’re against Nondisclosure Agreements like the one the County Commissioners signed in connection with Amazon’s proposed data center in Kline Township.
“Backdoor meetings” and signing NDAs with developers seem “counterproductive” to providing the transparency constituents want from public officials, Deatrich said.
Burns expressed a similar view: “NDAs promote lack of transparency and self-serving agendas.”
However, Twardzik said that in this competitive business world, “you need to keep some secrets … If you’re the coach of a basketball team, you’re not going to go over and tell the other basketball team all your plays.”
Audience members also asked questions about education, health care and other issues.
A question about whether workers should receive unemployment compensation when they’re on strike led to an exchange between Twardzik and Burns.
Twardzik said the strikers shouldn’t be entitled to the money because “their decision is not to work.”
Burns, a health care consultant and compliance officer from Tamaqua, said they “absolutely” should receive it.
“Tim (Twardzik is) joking back there, but guess what, Tim?” she said. “Everyone in this room didn’t have some of the advantages that you have. So, yes, having a good paying job, a fair job, with a union, is a success that we depend on and need to fight people like the billionaires who don’t give a s–t about any of us.”
Twardzik replied that despite being a son of the founder of Mrs. T’s Pierogies of Shenandoah, he had to work hard there.
“My children were not interested in the pierogi business, maybe because they saw me working so hard,” he added.
After saying she appreciates that Twardzik had to work, Burns asked if he voted to increase the minimum wage. He replied that he hadn’t.
Burns said that she has been both homeless and hungry and that she knows what it’s like to struggle. “So I will never sell out for any industry or put them – corporations or industry – above the people I will be representing,” she said.
Twardzik commended her on having the courage to run for office. In turn, she told him that “it takes a lot of courage to show up here, Tim, so we appreciate you doing that.”
Deatrich, who started out in his family’s auto parts and repair business and now teaches at the Berks Career and Technical Center, wasn’t asked the unemployment compensation question during the program.
A former president of his local Pennsylvania State Education Association union, he later said strikes are rare because neither labor nor management wants them.
But when workers are forced to strike because the two sides can’t reach an agreement in a timely manner, they are “technically unemployed” and should be allowed to collect unemployment.
Other speakers included Rachel Wallace, Democrat congressional candidate for the 9th District. Her opponent, Republican incumbent Dan Meuser, was at his party’s Trumpapalooza convention in Dallas.
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