Charlotte City Council tells anti-AI activists to lobby the state | Hour 3

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all of the links, become a patron, go to dpeakclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. Picking up where we left off in the last hour with the Charlotte City Council approval unanimous approval of a fifteen. Sorry yeah, fifteen week. We it's to one hundred and fifty days five month moratorium on data centers. This will, as the city Council says, this will give them time to do their homework and staff to develop a framework for data center construction. And again, just so everybody is aware of my position on this right now subject to change, but right now it is that if you don't have a regulatory framework for data centers as sort of a standalone industry, like how you're going to treat them, then okay, a moratorium may be worthwhile to create that framework. However, if you're going to use a moratorium to create a framework that bans construction of all data centers, then I'm opposed because not all data centers are the same. Right. You have very large ones, you have small ones. There are older ones that have been around for thirty years. Data centers are necessary. They are required infrastructure for our modern civilization. Okay, you're into this the AI component. As AI becomes more prevalent, right, they need a lot of computing space. Right, there is no such thing. As a cloud. Right, those are data centers. All your information that's easily transported through your phone. You can access all of your you know, your pictures of your pets and stuff, and you can show off you know people, and you can go to the the all of the apps. You can get your Uber and your Avocado toast and stuff on demand on your smartphone. Right. All of that stuff is powered through the cloud and through the servers, and that requires a place for the servers, and AI is going to require more computing power. And so that's why there's this building boom for these data centers, which, by the way, create a lot of money for the tax space. They're large, they can be they can be large footprints, and because they're privately owned, they generate property tax revenue, and they don't require a school, they don't require a hospital, they don't require like sidewalks and all that stuff. They don't need all of the things that cost local governments money. Which is why local governments always want, you know, they like these types of developments that generate a lot of property tax revenue and don't require a lot of services what they do need. And this is the argument we keep hearing is the water and electrical impacts. And I believe those arguments are overstated, if not exaggerated to the point of being deceptive. I've got stuff here I will get to but I want to go back to the city council meeting because there were some comments that were made by various members of the council. To do this is Lawana Mayfield, and she had some ideas on how to incentivize quote unquote certain building features for these data centers. We're in a drought. We're not the only ones in the drought. There's a drought throughout the nation that's happening without having language in place that mandated or incentivize heavily, and for me, making the costs for access to our water being cost prohibitive. That's how you incentivize internal cooling systems, and or location. It should be nowhere near schools, it should. I speak all the time about the fact that we are losing manufacturing areas. Manufacturing is the place where it needs to go because of the constant home that has not only a physical impact to us, it is having an impact on our wildlife on bees. For yes, you heard that correctly. It's the bees. So we can't so no, no, we have to. We've got to give the commis over in China. We've got to give them the advantage in AI development because of the bees. Now, I will say I don't have any problem treating the data centers as manufacturing like from a zoning perspective, I have no problem with that. But you heard what she said there about making access to our water. She calls it our water. She says, make it so cost prohibitive that it requires Basically this closed loop is what it's called the closed loop cooling system. Right. And by the way, as they're going through all of this, you have people in the AI arena, in that industry, in that field like Elon Musk is already looking to put these this AI computing stuff up into space because it's colder up there, right, So like government's going to be looking to regulate this and put on all sorts of controls and stuff. And by the time they figure it out. If they do, like the the advancements in the technology are going to be such that you know a lot of this stuff might not even be needed at some point, So make water too expensive. And then she also directed the mob up to the General Assembly, the North. Carolina General Assembly, understand the rules they set up. At any time, the General Assembly can decide what it's going to be the policy language for all one hundred and twenty counties across North Carolina. So if the right person gets to them and say, hey, we want access to put data centers wherever we. Want, they have the legal ability to do that. What does that mean? Go out and vote. Complain about it, just go vote. That's how you get for Democrats. It's what she means. Vote for Democrats. Right. She said she wants data centers located as far away from people as possible, and that they don't strain the local water supply or the local electrical grid. To make sure that the cost of running that facility twenty four to seven. For all of us that like to use CHET, GPT and CLAUDE and AI and everything else, We're going to use it because that's a reality. The question is, can't wait up? I don't have to stop? How to ask? Do I come to y'all job and stop looking up? So that's what I'm gona ask you. Not to do. So what did you hear what she said? Do I come to y'all's job and start acting up? She has very little patience for the crowd yelling and screaming. She's like she wanted that guy kicked out who disrupted the meeting earlier. He wasn't for some reason. But that's what you get when you don't kick out the disruptors. More people than disrupt because you've given a permission structure for them to engage in that kind of infantile behavior. But again, notice the crowd gets exercised by the mere mention of the reality that AI isn't going anywhere and it will be used. Simply stating that truth gets them all worked up, which is why I said that the data center issue is not really the issue. It's a cover story. For opposition to America leading in the AI race. That's what's really going on. People don't want AI. And well, those people in the crowd, who, by the way, utilized all sorts of data centers in order to communicate with each other on when to go to the meeting. What they're talking points would be right organizing when getting their signs printed up, like all of the stuff that they did in order to show up there and express their opposition into the data centers relied on data centers. But don't point that out. You'll also get booed for that, as we heard in the public hearing last week, when somebody pointed this truth out to them, everybody got apoplectic over that too. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life, and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video started in nineteen ninety seven in Minhill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos, and albums. The Trusted talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories, all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come. Who you are, visit creative video dot com. Let's head over to the phones. Here's Smith. Welcome to the program. Thank you. So, what's the name of that nut job who's SoundBite you just played? Uh, that would be Charlotte City Councilwoman Lawana Mayfield. Okay, your producer just confirmed it. She said, all one hundred and twenty counties in their honor, and I'm live in North count all my life, Pete. Unless we have just annex twenty counties from eastern Tennessee, we still have our hundreds. That just qualified her right there, he has no credibility. Enjoy your show, all right? Seth. I appreciate, No, you are correct. Mayfield was incorrect. There are not one hundred twenty counties in North Carolina. There are one hundred. I suspect what she meant to say was one hundred and twenty house districts, because there are one hundred and twenty house districts. Now for some reason, she did not include the fifty Senate districts. So I don't know why you would do that, but yeah, that's I got to believe. It's it's sort of like the fifty seven states that Obama talked about. Seven oh four number says the city of Charlotte owns the airport. Charlotte Douglass owns a massive amount of property that's insulated from all of the areas of concern, schools, neighborhood impact, et cetera, et cetera. Build them there on leased land and reap the benefits of leases and taxes. So shortsighted to think they can't see what's going to happen. That's actually a good idea. Yep. Put the you know, put the data centers on land that the that the airport has bought up over the years. Because you can't, like you get too close to the airport, and the noise is so loud right from the airplanes that and they don't and their security risks and all that, so they do a lot of like you know, manufacturing facilities that are out near the airport and that sort of thing. But yeah, that's a good idea. We could put data centers out there. Jennifer says people who cannot spell AI should not be involved in making rules for AI. That's fair, I know, I think that's fair. In regard to the council meeting. You can't reason with someone who has rejected reason. These activists have replaced reason with group consensus. Yeah, I think that's accurate. Nine oh eight number says why push to build them in rural areas? Why not put them in industrial parks or abandoned strip malls. Yeah, well, I mean I think that they could look to do that. I mean, the reason why you build them out in rural areas is because people don't want them close to them, because they've been told that if you it's sort. Of like the. Like five G is gonna is gonna kill all the birds, right, it's the same, or it's going to give you COVID right there. Are all these these. Conspiracies that are promulgated on social media. And I always say when you're on social media or the Internet in general, but really social media, you are entering into an informational battle space. Okay, And so you're seeing the TikTok video. Remember TikTok stillan by China, And so your algorithm that it's feeding you is going to give you information that you don't necessarily know why somebody might want you to see that information. I'm not saying everything you see online is not true, not saying that. I'm just pointing out that on social media you always have to be cognizant of the fact that you are in a battle for control over narratives. You are being inundated with propaganda, some of it coming from people who literally want you dead, but at minimum want Americans divided and want Americans to hamstring ourselves so we cannot compete globally, because if we compete globally, we win, and so they cannot beat us globally. That's why they steal all of our patents and trademarks and all that stuff. And if they can get us to voluntarily self constrain, then they can gain an advantage. Yeah. Another one Todd says one hundred and twenty counties. Come on, Lauana seven or four number says, I guess the ten thousand plus homes they're building all over the city in county won't put a stress on our water or power, right, everyone's getting solder now, Yeah, I mean, like this is the thing people complain about housing, not enough housing, but then nobody wants the houses built like this is again this goes to sort of that banana mindset, which is build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody. It's a more extreme version of nimbiism. Nimby stands for not in my backyard. And again, if you've got one of these data centers, one of the large ones, that may be noisy or something because they don't generate traffic. I mean there's like a handful of people that actually work at a data center, so it's not like you're getting a ton of traffic going in and out all the time, and so there is noise that if like the power goes out the generators kick on, that would be noisy if the generators. Are located outside. So like if you do like buffering and screening, and that's what I mean, if you're going to create you're using the moratorium to create a framework to address these types of impact issues, then okay. But if you're using the moratorium to try to do some sort of a ban, then that's stupid. Where did the extra twenty counties in North Carolina come from? Maybe? Uh, that's where Democrats are getting all of the extra votes. That's that's an interesting idea. Since space is a vacuum, it's very hard to dissipate the heat A data center generates. The most cost effective by far, data center is a box built above ground or and I've seen some ideas, you don't build them underground, build them in the water, like in the ocean or something like to keep you know, the temperatures cool like there. So there are things that are out there that are you know, decent ideas and should be explored, and the industry is exploring those ideas, no doubt about it. All. Right, Then there is J. D. Masuerra, Arius City council member. This is the guy. Okay, Well, before I get to that, well, okay, let me just say this. I have questions about whether or not he committed fraud in order to become a US citizen. I've outlined this before in the past. I'm not going to rehash it all right now, but it is kind of an interesting side note here when I play for you his comments, because he sounds an awful lot like another person who was not born here who then won elected office and is now promoting socialism, and JD. Masuera Arius sounds. An awful lot like that guy and also praises that guy. All right, I'll play for you with sound bites in a Okay, let's get to some audio. This is Councilman J. D. Mesuera Arias is very sensitive about the pronunciation of his name and the inclusion of all of the names, so make sure I do that correctly. Now, listening to him, you may mistake him for being a member of the Democrat Socialists of America. Take a listen. Tonight's vote on a one hundred and fifty day moratorium. I do believe it's more about data centers. I think it is about the kind of city we want to build and who we believe should have a meaningful voice in shaping our city's future, whether it's those who make profits at the expense of our community or the people the community the workers who are who are helping make those corporations the profits in the first place. Yeah, so there you go. Classes classic okay, classic Marxist ideology there right, it inverts it, right, like, oh, the people who are making profits off of us. It's like, yeah, they're right there. They've hired you to do a job, and you doing the job gives you money. So this is sort of a soak ritch But just in case that's not enough for you and you can't kind of sniff out the Marxism, we got a little bit of a JD. Mom Donnie like mom Donnie not born in America and as I said, seems to have gained the naturalization system to become a citizen. He said, data centers have real impacts and you can google it. I'm not kidding, I'm not kidding. He said that. He said google it, like, dude, do you realize that Google uses data centers. That's why there's like five thousand data centers across America right now already I might talk about the AI stuff. It's like this, Okay, our Unified Development Ordinance gives far more flex stability to developers then to residents. Allow data centers by right, and seven zoning districts, and because of state down zoning restrictions and by right zoning enabled by state law, our ability to protect those neighborhoods is very limited even if this moratorium is passed. So this is a moment, as I've said before, to understand the power that the state has over local jurisdictions. This happened in twenty nineteen when the city of Charlotte wanted to pass municipal ideas to residents that didn't have documentation here. The moment the state legislature found that out, they passed a state statute that prohibited every municipality, every local government in the state of North Carolina from protecting. Those residents protecting those residents. So yeah, it is a moment to say clearly that local governments need the authority to make decisions for the people who actually live here, not just those who profit here. Right, So there you go it. I mean, this is sort of standard anti property rights Marxist slop. And regarding the municipal IDs the reason why municipalities wanted to do that was so illegal. Aliens like JD used to be they could vote in local elections, which is why the state stepped in and said you can't do that. You're not allowed to do that, and Democrats were like, well, that's outrageous. We didn't. We had no plans whatsoever to allow illegal aliens to vote in elections. We just wanted to give them all IDs after the voter id constitutional amendment passed. Right, okay, And then of course he blames once again. The state of North Carolina. Unified Development Ordinance gives far more flexibility. Did I skip? Oh? I did? Hang on? I think I skipped a sound by. And we also have to be honest about the corporate reality in front of us. Yes, the corporation who is petitioning for rezoning in my district to build a forty thousand square foot data center already has in holding approval for a ten thousand square foot center if the rezoning is denied because of what you just heard from the attorney and my other colleagues, the state legal environment we live here in North Carolina, such as downzoning restrictions and by right state statute that allows this to happen without city council's approval. That tells us something important. They have options and they have flexibility. To my colleague just said a council member Mayfield. This is your time to hold other public institutions accountable, to hold our state representatives accountable, to make your voices be heard, because listen with all with I think I've said this to many of you in the audience. As much as I wish we could live in what New York City's experiencing right now, we do not live in that reality. In the good old state of North Carolina. What do you think he meant by the good old state of North Carolina? What do you think he meant? There sounds a lot like a. Dog whistle, right, a good old boy network kind of a thing. Look, by right, zoning means that if you have a piece of property and it is zoned by local government. Let's say it's I know, amusing outdated zoning classifications, but let's say it's R four residential, four four units per acre. You own an acre of property and you want to put four residential units on your one acre, you are by right allowed to do that. That's what's called property rights. That's why I say this is Marxist slop. It's anti property rights, Marxist slop. He's just you know, shoveling it out for the socialists in the audience. And I'm not saying that like all anybody disagrees with me as a socialist. No, they had t shirts proclaiming their socialism. Okay, so that's why they're cheering. That's why they love the idea. We would love to live in New York City currently under Mamdani. This guy is a DSA guy that is obvious to me. And by the way, he mentioned the UDO, the Unified Development Ordinance, the UDO was approved by wait for it, the Charlotte City Council. You guys did the overhaul of the zoning laws. You did that. The state didn't do that to you. You did that. But they, oh soo want home rule. Oh, they would love so much to be able to, you know, tax everybody as much as they can do billionaires taxes, and tax all the businesses, and confiscate all the property and wealth like they're doing in New York City with their block by block housing policies. Oh, he would love to do so much of that. But the state is the seminal authority. The state is the wellspring of the authority in our system. You may not like that, You may want to live in a state that has home rule, in which case I would advise you go to one of those states, get yourself a spot on one of those local bodies, and then you can do the home rule that you wish. Regarding some of the data center anti data center arguments, there's a very good piece several of them. National Review did a big back and forth pro and con debate about this over the last month or so. It is not true that AI data centers consume enormous amounts of water. This is a pernicious myth that has been spread by left wing activists who have confused the amount of water that data centers push through their closed loop cooling systems. This from the editors at National Review in defense of data centers is the headline. Companies are at present engaged in a building spree that puts all prior building sprees to shame in scale and in speed. The current investment in artificial intelligence eclipses the construction of the railroads, the development of the Interstate Highway system, the Apollo program, the electrification of the United States, as well as the Manhattan Project. Tech companies are set to spend nearly four trillion dollars on AI infrastructure over the next five years. Regarding the amount of water, they say that it's not true that these data centers use tons of water. They call it a pernicious myth that has been spread by left wing activists who have confused or lying, I would say, or are confused about the amount of water that data centers push through their closed loop cooling set systems. So the same water is circulated and reused repeatedly with the amount of water that would be needed by a factory that uh, that required a constant fresh supply. So it's not like they're they're putting a pipeline into the Catawba River and sucking up the water out of the Catawba. Okay, that's not what they're doing. Despite these specific scare scare mongering of such activists, it is indisputably the case that a whole host of other ordinary and typically unquestioned activities consume far more water than AI data centers, including you know it uses more than a data center, a golf course, the irrigation of your lawn, of suburban lawns, I mean, taken together. It's not like what okay, not just your lawn. Well, I mean, I don't know how much. Are you watering your lawn anyway? The farming of cattle, the cultivation of almonds. Yeah, have you ever seen a comparison about how much water is used to grow almonds? I mean it dwarfs the use of water in AI data centers, breweries, the running of breweries. Everybody loves their local brewery, right, Those breweries use more than the AI data centers. Yes they use water, but yes, all industrial activity does. As for the claims about data centers humming in ways that distress nearby residents or livestock, insofar as this is true, that's a zoning problem right. As I have said, large industrial facilities generate noise, especially if they're badly designed or improperly buffered. But there's no evidence that data centers pose any more of a threat in this regard than highways, factories, airports, substations, rail lines, or any other of the facilities that make a modern nation work. Since at least the outset of the Cold War, the US has maintained an unparalleled technological advantage over its geopolitical rivals that, in conjunction with its unique constitutional system, has helped turn it into the world's pre eminent economic and military power. Information technology is the currency of the future, and if we wish to control the future, the US must stay ahead of the pack. To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, this is not the time to go wobbly. Charles C. W. Cook, also at National Review, says there are about five thousand data centers across the US, with tens of millions of servers running inside of them using hundreds of megawatts of power. And how could it be otherwise when as a society we are so enthusiastic about the r results. The introduction of AI is likely to lead to the production of about thirteen hundred new data centers, many of them at hyperscale. That's the big one. Those are the biggest ones, right, But this is an expansion of the status quo. It's not a shift. It's just it's growth in the status quo. He says. I wonder do the newfound enemies of these projects believe that the current Internet runs on? Like, what do you think it runs on? As I've said, there's no such thing as a cloud, right, They're computers in racks inside enormous buildings that are built for the purpose of holding computers on racks. He talks about how you know people are like, oh, you know, we used to be a country that would build things. Well, this is what building things looks like. I mean, it's not the same thing or things that we used to build, but this is building new things. He says. This year, American companies are set to spend three quarters of a trillion dollars on new data centers, much of it in exactly the sort of areas that are constantly described as having been left behind. He talks about, then the median salary for the people who work in these data centers. For example, construction, if you're an electrician working on the construction, you're going to probably pull about one hundred and twenty k HVAC technicians, about ninety thousand, mechanical engineers, one hundred thousand, site engineers, one hundred and thirty five thousand. He says, personally, I do not understand why it is considered by some people to be more noble to work in a cannery than in a data center. But regardless, only one of those jobs is currently on offer. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like please support them too. And you heard it here, you can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.