1. United States
2. Md.
3. Letter

Demand Transparency on Secret Data Center Deals and Ban New Approvals Stop approving data centers in Washington County and make it illegal to hide development deals from the public behind NDAs. What happened on December 9, 2025 is exactly why residents cannot trust this process: Commissioner Jeff Cline and the full Board of County Commissioners signed nondisclosure agreements, locked the public out, and privately heard a pitch from a development team that included two men who had contributed to Cline's campaign just months earlier. He held that money for nearly ten months, then returned both contributions on June 12, 2026, the same day, while the County was quietly drafting a data center moratorium the public barely knew existed. Washington County's own moratorium ordinance describes data centers as high energy consumers, significant noise generators, and substantial water users that strain utility infrastructure, generate hazardous materials and electronic waste, and harm nearby homes and farms. That is not a sales brochure. That is the County's own words. Yet the same officials who wrote that language were sitting in a secret meeting with a developer whose company publicly advertises a data center project in Washington County. Now land tied to that project is being annexed into Hagerstown, conveniently outside the reach of the County moratorium. The public deserves to know what was pitched in that room, who asked for the NDA, and when Commissioners first discussed the moratorium internally. Hiding decisions this consequential from residents is not just bad governance. It is a health and environmental issue. Pass legislation requiring full public disclosure of any development presentations to elected officials, and halt new data center approvals until that transparency framework is in place.