Missing Emails add to the Archbald controversy
The latest target of the omnicause activist blob, whose causes have ranged from climate and fracking to Palestine, “climate superfund” laws, and plastics, is data-center construction. This episode now has its own Dimock, Pennsylvania: a face-off that raises questions about whether opponents’ tactics have slipped the bounds of propriety. (Boy, did they ever in Dimock.) As with the Dimock shenanigans, here the opposition’s success or failure could shape the larger policy debate. And as with fracking, the data-center fight carries serious economic and national-security consequences.
The new Dimock is Archbald Borough, Pennsylvania, where a municipal body acting in a quasi-judicial capacity must decide several conditional-use applications for proposed data centers. Several of those officials have publicly opposed one or more projects. That seems to be a problem for those officials under state law. Now, some public records recently released show substantial contact between advocates and Borough officials, while stopping short of proving private coordination.
Energy expert David Blackmon describes the scene on his Substack: “What we are witnessing in Archbald is a familiar and unfortunate pattern. Local politicians, sensing the political winds, rush to align themselves with the loudest voices in the room. In this case, those voices belong to residents organized under banners like “Stop Archbald Data Centers,” armed with studies predicting dire health and noise impacts from the facility’s diesel backup generators.”
Blackmon writes: “This is not some abstract legal technicality. It is a textbook case of local politicians forgetting the difference between campaigning and governing. The council members in question – Madonna Munley, Erin Owen, Larry Marchetti, President Lou Rapoch, Lisa Osborne, and Larry West – have been widely quoted in the local media expressing clear bias against data center development in general and this specific project in particular. They have framed the proposal not as a land-use question subject to the borough’s own zoning code, but as an existential threat to the community’s character. In doing so, they have crossed a bright legal line.” He continues: “Under Pennsylvania law, members of a municipal body performing quasi-judicial functions like deciding a conditional use application must avoid not only actual bias but even the appearance of it. The Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code and longstanding due-process principles demand impartiality. When officials publicly telegraph their opposition before the evidence is fully heard, they risk forfeiting the right to sit in judgment.”
Cornell Realty Management LLC has asked six of the seven Council members to recuse themselves from the Wildcat Ridge conditional-use proceeding, arguing that they had prejudged the application. Blackmon notes, “This example is thick with irony. Archbald’s council previously amended its zoning to accommodate data centers. Now a majority of its members appear determined to make sure this particular one never gets built. Rather than inspiring confidence in local governance, this kind of bait-and-switch signals to investors that the rules are only as stable as the next election cycle or the next wave of public meetings. Communities that treat every large project as a political opportunity rather than a regulatory one eventually find themselves left behind.”
Whether recusal is required will depend on the conduct and hearing record for each Council member.
GAO is reviewing the recent public record production, which is broken up into three portions here, here and here. The request sought nine categories: communications involving applicants, members of Stop Archbald Data Centers, JMS Acoustics, Borough staff, and Council members; KBA Engineering review materials; and the engagement letters and invoices for JMS Acoustics and a law firm hired by the Borough, Eckert Seamans.
That firm is defending the Borough against an appeal filed for its failure to respond to the records request. It grouped the production into five categories, consolidating eight request items and saying nothing about the KBA materials:
“1. Emails on Borough systems between applicants and the Borough dated between July 1, 2025 and June 10, 2026, relating to data center projects.
- Emails and correspondence between the identified members of the “Stop Archbald Data Centers” group and the Borough between July 1, 2025 and June 10, 2026, relating to data center projects.
- Emails between the Borough and JMS Acoustics, LLC, from January 1, 2026 to June 10, 2026. The engagement letter between the Borough and JMS Acoustics, LLC and the invoices submitted by JMS Acoustics, LLC to the Borough in 2026.
- Emails between Borough officials sent in 2026 containing the Requestor-identified search terms.
- The engagement letter between the Borough and Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott, LLC and the invoices submitted by Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott, LLC to the Borough in 2026.”
The Borough’s five production categories account for only eight of the nine request items. Category 1 corresponds to Request Item 1; Category 2 to Item 2; Category 3 combines Items 3, 8, and 9; Category 4 corresponds to Item 5; and Category 5 combines Items 6 and 7.
Nothing in the five-category list corresponds to Item 4, the KBA records. Those labels also conceal scope changes. Category 1 in the response (not in the request) is limited to emails “on Borough systems”; Item 1 actually covered “all communications” and the request expressly included records on personal accounts. This turns out to be a tell.
Category 2 refers to “identified members,” although Item 2 covered any group member. Category 4 does not identify which of the six staff and eleven Council mailboxes were searched. The Borough released redacted Eckert Seamans invoices and withheld what its position statement calls “internal communications between itself and its attorneys as privileged materials protected by the attorney client privilege.” The invoice production preserves totals and some timekeeper summaries, while omitting the narrative time entries that would explain the work. The Borough’s affidavit uses broader language, stating that it withheld responsive emails “involving the Borough’s attorneys” (Markey Aff. ¶ 15).
So far, the records support these takeaways: There is a visible pipeline from citizen advocacy into Borough policymaking. Residents supplied ordinance language and proposed conditions. Council placed Michael Pilch on its Data Center Committee and appointed Kayleigh Cornell to Borough bodies. After a rapid change in Council leadership, the Borough pursued stricter zoning, sound, and environmental protections.
These facts support an inference of access, influence, and political alignment, although they do not document a covert agreement or a private exchange setting this course.
Professional criticism from JMS Acoustics also reinforced the Borough’s harder posture against permitting new development, making it difficult to attribute any particular decision to the activists alone. (The request did not separately seek direct communications between advocates and Council members, so these records do not provide a complete account of those relationships.)
The omission in the Borough’s response of an entire category of records sought is consequential. Item 4 sought: “All review letters, comment letters, and reports submitted to the Borough by its consulting engineer (the firm the Borough identifies as KBA) concerning any data center application, from July 1, 2025 to the date of this request.” The Borough’s five-category description has no counterpart for Item 4, and its affidavit does not describe any search of KBA or the Borough’s engineering files.
The production also shows Zoning and Building Code Official Brian Dulay using archbaldcode@gmail.com for Borough business. The Borough’s affidavit says that Borough staff have assigned email addresses, and that those electronic mailboxes were searched. It does not identify this Gmail account as one of them.
The pending Office of Open Records appeal asks the Borough to account for those gaps. We expect to hear more in the coming weeks.