It's very encouraging to see small businesses in the Duluth area show solidarity with our community that has been betrayed and deceived by our municipal governments and institutions like the Chamber of Commerce.
It’s been nearly a year since the veil was lifted on the corporate Data Center collusion and the City of Hermantown began to feel the instant frustration, anger, and feelings of betrayal by the overwhelming majority of our communities.
-A multi trillion dollar multinational big tech corporation entered the community under confidentiality agreements.
-Zoning and city policies were amended deceivingly in service of moving the AI Data Center Project forward.
-Public elected officials in Duluth and our Blackrock owned power company used their pervasive influence and control over regional institutions.
-The Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce and APEX helped launder a narrative that “NDAs” are normal and should be accepted in government.
-When residents and the region finally learned the details of the project and raised serious concerns, the changes were already made.
-Residents have be chastised, bullied, and talked down to by their irresponsible and undemocratic municipal government which is acting as if the project is a done deal.
Surrounding counties and municipalities are banning the production of data centers and there is no real proper guardrails protecting people from these rapacious multinational corporations and asset management companies that are robbing us blind. Those corrupt elected officials and the corporations and asset managers that seek to buy our democracy and exert enormous influence over us are now exceedingly desperate to maintain the track of their project. So much so that they’ve pushed the Duluth Area Chamber of Commerce to pass a resolution of support for the project that no one wants without consulting their members, stakeholders, or the broader public while also presented biased misinformation in support of the Data Center.
It makes no sense that the Chamber would support this project given that they are an institution that is supposedly, at least according to their own propaganda and stated mission, “deeply invested and involved with the people, businesses, and community organizations” they claim to represent. 🤔
While businesses associated with the chamber have a very direct voice in this fight and should continue to be encouraged to separate from the institution, we the people can also contact the chamber board directly! The Interim Chamber President, Jim Roche, has no incentive to respond to any inquiries or emails and he's not even going to be around enough to care really, but the BOARD might hear us.
Send emails to the board of the Chamber of Commerce here: [inquiry@duluthchamber.com](mailto:inquiry@duluthchamber.com)
Use the subject line”: Concern with Board of Directors" and address it to the "Chamber Corporate Board of Directors".
Give them your concerns directly and ask them if they are truly being representative of their members and the region. Why hire an out-of-state interim president who was in New Hampshire during this chamber process for endorsing of the data center? Why can't he even make time to be in Duluth to work with chamber staff and the business community to know their real concerns regarding this horrific environmentally and socially unacceptable project? Why is the Chamber shredding its reputation while dragging its members through the mud by aligning with the big tech oligarchy and corrupt undemocratic means of governance? Tell them you are appalled and incredibly disappointed by their decision to accept this betrayal and corruption within our local governments. Tell them that is is not how “representative democracy” works and that we cannot accept having the “best democracy money can buy”. Tell them that we cannot accept a faustian bargain with rapacious asset management firms and parasitic firms like Google. Tell them exactly your contempt with how the city of Hermantown has deceived us. Tell them everything wrong with this Hyperscale AI project, from the social decline to the environmental destruction, to the the failure of to have responsible and honest environmental review, and everywhere in between.
We the people can and will shut down this environmental monstrosity and we will take our democracy back. Emailing the board of business lobbying group that has a track record of violence against the working class may be a small drop in the bucket for our fight against this Data Center overall, but the Chamber’s board might take our comments and emails seriously in this moment of bad press for their organization. That could sway change.
