Wondolowski slams county data center guide

In a June 19 letter to Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne, Cleveland Building Trades and Construction Council Executive Secretary/Business Manager Dave Wondolowski strongly criticized the county’s recommendations for managing future data center construction.

Released at the beginning of June, the guide, entitled “Data Center Development: Recommendations for Local Communities,” is meant to help community leaders navigate proposals for future data center construction proposals.

Created by Cuyahoga County’s Data Center Working Group, the guide contains tips for evaluating opportunities, understanding potential impacts and making informed decisions about future projects. The report also urges communities to create data center moratoriums.

In his letter, Wondolowski said the report’s sole objective is to warn community leaders that “growth comes at a cost.”

“While we should be formulating and implementing strategy to draw this investment to our region – responsibly, in a way that allows our communities to benefit – we are publishing reports that give credibility to online fearmongering,” he wrote.

Since the report became public, city leaders within the county have begun to take action and follow the recommendation to pass a moratorium on data center construction.

The city of Berea was first, enacting a 12-month moratorium on June 18. Cleveland could be next.

According to Crain’s, Cleveland City Council could vote on a three-month moratorium this month. 

Such actions can quickly become job killers.

Wondolowski said the county report contains antiquated, backward thinking that will prevent the creation of tens of thousands of building trades jobs in Cuyahoga County. 

“To be clear, NO GROWTH is exacting a tremendous cost from Cuyahoga County residents,” he wrote.

The recommendations, he said, were created through a set of secondary, partisan sources, including climate-change advocacy associations such as the Sierra Club and Climate Mayors, the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation, out-of-state recommendations that do not reflect the reality of Ohio’s major metropolitan areas, anti-data center articles and Cuyahoga County’s Chief of Climate and Sustainability.

Missing from the guide, Wondolowski pointed out, was pro-data information, such as recommendations from New Albany and Ohio’s Joint Data Center Committee, reporting on how data centers are sustainably growing local economies, economic impact analysis from just the building trades jobs created by data centers and the critical importance of data centers to local emergency infrastructure. He also rebuked the county’s position on the construction jobs created by data centers, which he called insulting.

“The county takes the insulting position that thousands of long-term jobs created during data center construction and maintenance cycles as ‘just near-term construction jobs,”’ wrote Wondolowski. “Data centers create thousands of skilled trades careers that last for years during initial construction and provide permanent lucrative maintenance positions lasting for decades.”

While Central Ohio is in the midst of a building boom that has made the area one of the nation’s top construction markets, Wondolowski believes the decisions made by county bureaucrats will restrain the Greater Cleveland area’s industrial might and economic potential.

He urged Cuyahoga County residents to hold county officials responsible for the lost opportunities and jobs as a result of the guide’s recommendations.

“It’s time taxpayers demand serious strategic planning from our entitled public servants,” Wondolowski wrote.