Door Knocking and Data Centers
On a hot August Sunday at the edge of the Potomac River, two young women stood together at the head of a long table of neighbors gathered for coordinated, community political action. Of the two dozen or so around the table were people invested in their community and their state by spreading the word about Lucia Valentine and Elizabeth Ferris.
Lucia Valentine is running for State Delegate from District 97. Elizabeth Ferris is running for State Senate from District 15.
Everyone around that table and everyone we talked to while knocking at their doors, on the front porch or in their front yard, were dead set against and angry as could be by the data center planned in the Bedington community in Berkeley County.
Everyone we talked to, as we walked and/or drove door-to-door, agreed with Valentine and Ferris that we make education a much higher priority and we protect everybody’s privacy. But what got them animated and engaged was their anger at the GOP Governor and his data centers.
Longtime Republicans are wrestling with the questions of their vote.
Many Republicans in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia are working on the best ways to fight back against the betrayal of a MAGA Governor and Republican legislators who jammed through House Bill 2024 (HB2014) inviting data centers all over the state. The bill denied any local authorities, e.g., county or town councils the ability to represent their voters and constituents who don’t want a water sucking, higher electricity rates, heat generating, and constant noise producing industrial campus in their community.
Several of the residents I talked to are career military retirees who came to West Virginia for quiet nights and peaceful days. These data centers will destroy the peace of entire chunks of counties where they’re located.
We saw the clenched jaws and dagger-like eyes when they spoke about being sold out and let down.
There’s another data center in the works near Kearneysville and the Veterans Administration Hospital.
But the opposition to data centers in West Virginia has already brushed back the ignorant and over-his-head Governor who opened 2026 with his proclamation that West Virginia would lead the nation in data centers. Since then, average West Virginians all over our state are pushing back hard as they can.
Last Tuesday I sat with friends and colleagues Carol Caflisch and Lisa Swanson in a gorgeous garden in Berkeley Springs talking about grassroots political action and winning local elections. The three of us have worked closely on the streetside protests in the Eastern Panhandle. The question before so many of us in the grassroots movement is the work to move electoral action to make CHANGE.
Last Wednesday I rolled over West Virginia’s glory and beauty, marveling at the mountains, rushing rivers, tiny hollers down to Charleston for a meeting about data centers. My dear friend, Rupok Biryani from the Bedington Community was there—well respected and focused. There was great research, great legislative experience.
But it’s time for those who love West Virginia to say STOP!!
Stop here before the high tech robber barons, modern energy corporations (coal and gas companies) destroy this most sacred and gorgeous natural creation.
It’s time to go directly to West Virginians about what GOP Gov. Morrissey and his Republican legislators have done and vote them all out.
With these damn data centers pushing forward, the GOP has finally said, we don’t care about any of you, we don’t care about your family, your home, peace in your life.
The WV GOP is saying we will take your money and give you back industrial monsters.
Our friend Ace Parsi, Democratic Congressional Candidate from District 2 was also at the meeting in Charleston. In the most powerful words of the meeting Ace said: “We have two and a half months to fight electorally, to win offices, to do good, and serve our people and state.”
Look for me on the roads and streets of West Virginia knocking on doors for Democratic women stepping up to both fight and care for our people and our state.
This article first appeared in the Spirit of Jefferson, August 20, 2026
