Staff Reports
The Center Square’s new disclosure is a red flag for anyone who believes in local control and open government. Their public‑records requests found that in nearly half of the Pennsylvania towns hosting data‑center projects on the state’s Fast Track list, municipal officials or staff signed nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) with developers — and at least one township stopped answering records requests altogether. If you think decisions about big power and water users should happen behind closed doors, apparently some local leaders agree. For the rest of us, this is a transparency problem that smells like trouble.
Fast‑Track NDAs: What the reporting showed
The core finding is simple and ugly: Right‑to‑Know requests to nine Fast Track host municipalities produced NDAs for four of them, and a fifth, Kline Township, went silent after saying a legal review was needed. Examples named in the reporting include supervisors or staff in Salem Township, Falls Township, and Shippingport signing confidentiality pacts tied to Amazon, QTS, or Oracle‑branded projects. Over 30 other municipalities with non‑Fast Track proposals were asked; most said they had not signed NDAs. In short: NDAs are popping up where the state had promised speed and oversight, and they are cutting residents out of the conversation about huge data‑center builds.
Local examples make the warning clear
These are not theoretical worries. The reporting cites a Salem supervisor who signed NDAs for multiple projects and later left the board, a Falls Township signing that didn’t even name the developer, and a Shippingport secretary who provided an NDA missing the company signature and later said the company was no longer involved. That pattern — rushed agreements, vague language, missing signatures, and silence from officials — is the kind of red tape that helps powerful developers move faster than public scrutiny can keep up. It’s also how communities end up with bills for power upgrades, water stress, and higher rates with little chance to weigh costs and benefits.
Why this matters for Pennsylvania voters and taxpayers
NDAs with municipalities undermine transparency and public trust. Data centers are big, thirsty, and energy‑hungry; they can change local tax rolls, strain electric grids, and affect water supplies. When municipal officials sign secrecy agreements, residents lose the basic information they need to hold leaders accountable. Governor Josh Shapiro has moved to remove data centers from the Fast Track program and banned NDAs for agencies under his jurisdiction, and federal senators have opened inquiries. That’s welcome — but local officials still need to remember who they work for: the public, not the highest bidder.
Fixes: simple rules, honest government
Here’s the conservative, common‑sense answer: stop signing NDAs for municipal land‑use negotiations involving public resources. Put every developer proposal on the public record, publish meeting minutes and legal advice, and require any confidentiality to be narrowly tailored and court‑tested — not a blanket gag. If a municipality thinks a secret contract will bring jobs and ignore long‑term costs, voters should have the right to say no. Otherwise we’ll keep getting fast tracks to surprise utility bills and slow courts to fix the mess. Transparency isn’t a partisan nicety — it’s the only way to keep government honest and development accountable.
