Sebald Beham:
Haman Recognizes his Fate
(1548)

"…constrained by law to consider facts rather than myths."

As a Port Commissioner, The Muse has been charged with promoting economic development in this county. Her elected position pays a modest stipend, something well South of the most modest minimum wage, plus expenses, for which she works seven days each week. She’s often up after midnight, studying some opportunity. Fortunately, she’s an information and data magnet, never happier than when she’s researching some issue. She’s especially skilled at separating opportunities from the myths often accompanying them. She insists upon more than merely due diligence, and she knows the tricks that reliably separate facts from popular fictions. Her constituents aren’t always so demanding, for they sometimes fall prey to the many myths surrounding essentially every economic development opportunity.

Probably nothing has been more damaging to Prosperity than the mythology surrounding industrial property development. No, it’s not anything like the sorts of development most everybody’s more than familiar with. It’s an animal almost unto itself. First, its scale renders it next to impossible to conceive. It seems to consume more than its share of resources, even when its demands remain relatively modest. It’s often unsightly when compared with other kinds of development. The cardboard box plant that has sat on our county’s Western border since the seventies isn’t anybody’s idea of lovely. It’s also quite smelly and produces some slag that’s piled alongside the Federal highway it sits beside. It “uses” millions of gallons of water, though “borrows” might be the better description. It returns what doesn’t evaporate, after rigorous State Ecology testing. Until late last year, it employed 300 people and paid living wages. The owners shut down two of its three production lines, claiming the aging infrastructure was no longer profitable, and laid off 200.

A hundred remaining living wage jobs are nothing to write off. The obvious inconveniences the plant represents still seem worth the hassles it creates, there still being no such thing as a free lunch. Each industrial opportunity presents a fresh mix of just these sorts of externalities. Each “uses” water and power, in various mixes. Each must pass rigorous scrutiny to even be permitted to develop their property. Each must also live under equally rigorous environmental regulations governing water and power use as well as disposal of any waste products, and governing even traffic into and out of the facility. The Muse claims that the Port’s tenants and beneficiaries are “well regulated.” In return, the county receives property tax income from the increased and increasing value of the developed property, and also benefits from employment. Living-wage jobs are difficult to come by, and one sure way to ensure Prosperity in our out-of-the-way corner of the state.

Each development attracts complaints. Some of which make sense. Some classes of industrial-scaled development, though, seem to attract more myths. The current mythical industrial development proposal centers around a data center. The Port announced the proposal a couple of years before agreeing to sell a parcel to the developer, a period covered by a routine non-disclosure agreement. Once the buyer was announced, a hue and cry erupted over why no public comment period had been provided, though the sale had been an open and public meeting agenda item for months before the sale was finally announced. Every question posed during that long period was duly answered, but the opponents had expected some sort of public vote on the proposal, I guess. They cited concerns gleaned from other, dissimilar jurisdictions, which social media had magically raised to mythical status. The chief complaint seemed to be that nobody mustered a public comment period before the public comment period had been mustered, which is a normal part of the County and State’s permitting process, and couldn’t start until the developer submitted their permit applications, after purchasing the property.

The opponents had apparently decided before even reviewing the proposal that they would oppose whatever was proposed. This stance was, of course, their choice, and not an unknown or even unusual component of industrial property development. The Muse, in her role as Commissioner, developed information on the likely impacts of the development, some of which contradicted the propaganda distributed by the development’s opponents, who had made up their minds without the benefit of actual data on this specific development, which was in some ways unique. The most frequent response she received when sharing her facts was that the opponent “didn’t believe that.” The Myths easily dominated public opinion, unconstrained by much anchoring reality. Those who feel free to just make up shit always hold a curious advantage over those who hold themselves constrained by facts. Many of the concerns come across as people scaring themselves, convinced of outcomes unlikely to occur even under the worst imaginable circumstances. These seem to be held as if sacred truths rather than myths.

A kind of chaos resulted. Perhaps that’s intentional. I recognize the social media tactics favored by those who feel powerless: remorseless propaganda unleashed with scorched-earth ferocity. Of course, these concerns make more noise than even the most careful analysis. It’s easy to discount the existing State ecological regulations as ineffective if you don’t know the first thing about the state’s long reputation for effective regulation. Innuendo serves as facts, especially when the facts don’t support the foregone conclusion, but this argument isn’t, at root, about data centers. In the first half of 2025, data center investment drove the overwhelming majority of US GDP growth — and without it, the US economy would have been essentially flat. Our existing industrial employers, the ones that account for most of the living wage jobs here, have been laying people off and closing operations. The County would be insolvent were it not for cutting and freezing employment. Austerity cannot produce Prosperity. The Muse calculated the value the data center might provide. Prosperity. Fortunately, that called-for comment period is rapidly approaching, during which opponents and supporters can submit their questions and assertions for consideration by the regulatory authorities, which are constrained by law to consider facts rather than myths.

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Prosperity, #PureSchmaltz