“Queen Ann” Wheeler Gives Favored Contractor “Royal Treatment”
Executive director says: “Wheeler won’t heed citizens. QTS pushes their propaganda.”
School principal stands up for children and cancels QTS ‘Open House’
Haymarket, Virginia (April 17, 2023) – Citizens decrying Chair Wheeler’s efforts to industrialize rural areas of the County with backdoor deals and democracy-busting tactics have seen her stoop to a new low as her favored contractor QTS wanted to use a sixth-grade orientation at Bull Run Middle School to spread their propaganda.
“Obviously Ann Wheeler dismisses and disdains county citizens,” Coalition executive director Elena Schlossberg said. “What’s shocking is she would allow her favored contractor – and talking point provider – QTS to access county parents and children at a school event. But thankfully, our Bull Run Middle School principal wouldn’t stand for it. The QTS ‘open house’ on April 18 at Bull Run Middle School has been cancelled.”
Schlossberg observed, “You can’t make this stuff up. QTS – possibly through a back channel – was given permission to host an ‘open house’ selling their vision of an industrialized rural area the same night as rising sixth graders and their parents will visit Bull Run Middle School. This is the same QTS Wheeler parrots in her blast emails. Citizens deserve to know who allowed QTS to reserve this space on the same night and had it promoted using Wheeler’s publicly funded communication channels.”
“As a parent, I’m doubly concerned that Wheeler’s contractor of choice saw fit in some cases to send their email to the children of homeowners.” Schlossberg continued. “Wheeler’s willingness to trade her elected office and environmental damage for personal gain is something we’re sadly accustomed to. Her standing by, while children are solicited by her cronies, is beyond the pale.”
“Who approved this use of space? And how long have they known about it?,” Schlossberg asked rhetorically. “These are answers county citizens deserve, even if Wheeler prefers to keep her dealings on behalf of QTS ‘on the QT’ as we used to say.”
Schlossberg added, “Standing by is all Wheeler can do, as the science continues to cut against her personal economic interests. In just the last week, the Va. Department of Environmental Quality retracted a plan to suspend existing law and allow data centers to rely on diesel backup generators, while national news reported high levels of “forever chemicals” in Northern Virginia drinking water, including the Occoquan Reservoir. Wheeler’s response, just in time for Earth Day, is to ‘pave the planet’ and add millions of square feet of impervious surfaces near the main tributaries to the Occoquan watershed.”
“The citizens of this County have seen a version of this before. The difference is that while Amazon and Dominion Energy failed to impose their will from the outside, Wheeler is enabling the rot from within …. And if that means data center contractors were given direct access to rising sixth graders and their parents, that’s collateral damage she’s willing to support.”
“We’ve never shied from fighting for our children’s’ future. Thank goodness we also have a school principal standing up for our kids and against the data center insanity being thrust on our families.”