MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — Berkeley County commissioners are continue to react to the town hall in the auditorium of Spring Mills High School last Friday in regards to the large data center planned for the Bedington community.
The event took comments from more than 25 members of a public with hundreds more in attendance. Berkeley County Commission President Eddie Gochenour said he and fellow commissioner John Hardy chose not to response to those who spoke.
“Number one, when you start going back and forth, I would, I would guess to probably about 20 people have gotten to stand up and, and speak and express their opinion,” Gochenour said on WEPM’s Panhandle Live. “The other thing is, you know, they’re, I’m sure there were people in the crowd. It doesn’t matter what you say, they’re, they’re going to, you know, try to disrupt and, and try to bring negative comment. The reason for the meeting really and truly was to come and listen.”
Gochenour was asked if anyone on the Berkeley County Commission or Berkeley County Development Authority signed an NDA or Non Disclosure Agreement. He also talked about the timeline through which county commissioners found out about the project:
“The Berkeley County Development Authority has an NDA with the the project, which which I am a member of the Berkeley County Development Authority. I tried to explain to (the town hall audience), look on February the 20th is when the state contacted the local development authority and asked Jennifer (Smith, the BCDA director), can you get the local leaders together all for a meeting on Monday,” Gochenour said.
“Monday, we sit down and we listen to what the project was and then that following Thursday is when the governor made the announcement,” Gochenour said.
“So, that’s how soon, that’s how quick everybody knew it. And there’s been a total misunderstanding from the very beginning about this particular bill,” he said, reiterating his statement that HB 2014 removed any say from Berkeley County’s leadership. “It’s all on the state level. People are really ill-informed about a lot of this. And I would encourage our governor and the legislators to have a town hall.”
He said the data center project was coordinated through state government and not the county commission.
Asked during the interview on WEPM’s Panhandle Live if any members of Berkeley County government received financial kick backs from this project, Gochenour said, “Absolutely not. That’s absolutely ridiculous. And you know that people that want to accuse me or anybody else of that, you know, prove it.”
“You can’t (prove it) because it’s not happening,” Gochenour said, emphatically. “You know, I would suggest to them to keep their mouth shut, quite honestly.”
Gochenour added that even though the commission was not involved in recruiting this data center, they will take the public’s concerns to the governor and ask questions, particularly related to water, air, and quality of life.
“We’re not going to just sit back,” he said. “That’s not what we’re going to do. And we have not sat back. I have worked very closely with Chris Morris, the governor’s gentleman that’s in charge of the data center.”
Among his questions for those developing the project, “What are your setbacks? What requirements do you have on water and air?”
“Those are the things that that we will be working on to try and protect those properties.”
Gochenour added he believes the governor needs to hold some town halls regarding the project, as well. You can hear his full interview here.