Letters for Sunday, July 5

Data centers: What’s the real story?

Data centers are often promoted as economic engines, but communities rarely hear the full story of their impact in advance. Taxpayers start paying for these projects long before they’re built – and sometimes even when it never happens.

To attract developers, local governments approve tax breaks, discounted utility rates and costly infrastructure upgrades years in advance. Roads get widened, substations expanded and water systems upgraded on the public’s dime while the company can walk away if they want to. The community is left paying off infrastructure debt for a project that never happened.

Even when a data center is built, benefits are often overstated. Modern facilities typically employ only a few dozen workers, many of them specialized positions filled from outside the region. And the environmental cost is real. Data centers consume enormous amounts of electricity and water, straining local resources and leaving long-term impacts on the land, rivers and air. In the end, people pay – and the earth pays too.

This is why the newly introduced Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act matters. Supporters say it would pause new AI-driven data centers until stronger safeguards are in place to protect water, power grids, taxpayers and the environment.

Meanwhile, Rep. Michael Baumgartner has supported legislation that would make it easier for data center permits to move forward, even when environmental or community concerns are raised. Residents must look closely at what these policies really mean for rural communities like ours.

Dianna Michaels

Spokane

STA should live within means

I manage a small business here in town, and I see the math my employees are doing every payday. I see them skipping lunch, carpooling to save gas and praying their old vehicles make it through another month. We’re all tightening our belts just to keep the lights on.

So, when I learned that STA is sitting on over $250 million in reserves while asking struggling families to dig deeper, I had to speak up. That’s a quarter-billion dollars in the bank, and they’re coming to my staff, people who can barely cover rent, for more money?

I want my team to have reliable transit options. But I also know that every dollar matters when you’re trying to keep a household afloat. My employees can’t afford another hit to their paychecks, and neither can the customers who keep our doors open.

Before STA asks working families to sacrifice more, they need to do what the rest of us do: live within their means and use what they already have.

I’m voting no on this measure, and I’m asking other business owners and workers to join me. Let’s tell STA to spend their reserves first. Then we’ll talk about whether they truly need more.

Rusty Ford

Spokane

Avista’s monopoly

Mr. W. Smith (Letters, June 30) complains Avista is a “monopoly.” Of course it is a monopoly. Who would want lines and poles from three competing utility companies running this way and that through the neighborhood? Avista is a monopoly for sensible reasons of cost-saving efficiency. It is also, importantly, a regulated monopoly. Avista must go before a public rate commission to seek approval to raise rates. And of course, over time, rates must increase as the cost of labor and materials increase. Please also look to see which companies sponsor so many good works in our community and you will often see Avista and its employees in the forefront.

Richard Kuhling

Spokane