WE AIN’T IGNORANT RUBES

A recent letter to City Hall from a Texas real estate developer promoting a 310-acre data center in Grove City reveals what these out-of-staters really think of us lowly Midwesterners.

The letter from Avery Africa, director of site selection and development for Headwaters Site Development of Dallas, offers to provide experts to testify before Grove City’s blue-ribbon task force on data centers.

In the middle of the letter, Africa writes, “Our goal is not to influence the outcome of the process.”

Are you kidding?

Of course, Africa and the rest of Headwaters Development’s representatives and experts want “to influence the outcome.” 

That’s what their lobbyists have been trying to do since they first broached the subject with City Hall more than 18 months ago. That’s why Headwaters Development hired two prominent Columbus law firms to help plead their case. That’s why one of Headwaters Development’s lawyers threatened to sue Grove City, if the Council imposed a one-year moratorium on data centers.  

Even though data-center skeptics flinch at some of the company’s hard-ball tactics, they concede that Headwaters Development has every right to promote its data center. That’s what debates in a democracy are all about. Each side gets to make its case.

But, please, Ms. Africa. Stop with the “our goal is not to influence the outcome” stuff. Of course, you want “to influence the outcome.”

Here’s some friendly advice from In My Opinion, a Midwesterner for the last 56 years: We may live in “fly-over-country.” Our hometown may be a fraction of the size of Dallas. We may have sprawling farmlands just outside our city limits.

But we ain’t ignorant rubes.

We can go toe-to-toe with know-it-all outsiders. Just ask the playoff football teams that lost to Ohio State on the Buckeyes’ glorious march to a national championship on Jan. 20, 2025. (By the way, Ms. Africa, the Buckeyes beat the University of Texas in the semi-final game of those playoffs.)