Santa Clara City Council Can Surrender or Fight Union "Greenmail" Against Data Center
Here's an email sent today (June 26, 2018) to the Santa Clara City Council:
Item #2f - CEQA Objections to a Proposed Data Center - Greenhouse Gas Emissions Disaster?
Dear Santa Clara City Councilmembers:
Tonight you will vote to delay a public hearing to consider two appeals of decisions to approve the 2305 Mission College Boulevard Data Center Project. Here is the agenda item on the city’s website: Request to Set July 17, 2018 for a Public Hearing to Consider Two Appeals Submitted in Relation to 2305 Mission College Boulevard Data Center Project.
As you are certainly aware, the unions that are appealing want the developer to sign a Project Labor Agreement (PLA). Then there will be some rudimentary “environmental mitigation” such as watering down the dirt, and the objections will go away. This is called “greenmail” - using the state’s environmental laws to extort project owners into making an economic concession to an outside party.
You have two choices tonight in how you serve the people of Santa Clara:
1. Condemn the misuse of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) for purposes unrelated to environmental protection. Tell them to back down.
2. Praise how unions use the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to get jobs they would otherwise not get in a competitive free market. Encourage them to do it on all major private projects in Santa Clara.
Here’s a list of links to union CEQA objections to this project to date, uploaded to the Phony Union Tree Huggers website for convenient access for you:
Please contact me with any questions.
Eric Christen, Executive Director
Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction