Turn on your TV right now or watch a YouTube video and you will see slick ads for Vernon Bryant and Chenoa Davis.
These ads claim both candidates are fighting to lower your electric bill.
Do not fall for it. It is a bold-faced lie, and it insults every working person in Halifax County.
Let us look at the facts. Bryant and Davis backed a massive data center deal that was kept secret for two whole years under a non-disclosure agreement. When the county finally held a public meeting before signing it, nobody from our community spoke up in favor of it. Not one person. So many people were present to speak out against it that there was an overflow area in the hallway, and many people were turned away at the door.
Why? Because the deal was written so poorly. We were not even dealing directly with a real tech giant. Our county signed away our land and resources to a middleman company whose only job is to turn around and lease the space out to big tech for huge profits. The middleman gets rich, big tech gets cheap land, and regular folks get stuck with the bill.
Data centers eat up massive amounts of electricity. Who do you think pays when power companies have to build giant new lines and stations to feed them? We do.
Right now, Dominion Energy wants to hike our power bills by over 12 percent. That is extra money out of your pocket every single month just to keep your lights on and your food cold.
Did Vernon Bryant or Chenoa Davis stand up and fight for you? No. Neither one of them testified against that 12 percent rate hike.
In fact, Vernon Bryant drove to the hearing, sat right there in the room in person, and chose to keep his mouth shut. He did not say one single word to stop Dominion Energy from taking more of your hard-earned cash.
Now, big TV ads flood our living rooms saying Bryant and Davis want to cut our power bills. A big-money political action committee called Local Action Solutions is paying for those ads.
When asked about it, Bryant and Davis played dumb. They claimed they have no idea who is buying these TV ads for them, but that they agreed with the message.
Who do they think we are? Do they think we are stupid?
Nobody drops big money on TV ads out of the goodness of their heart. You push through a bad deal for an outside middleman in secret, you sit quietly while power rates jump over 12 percent, and suddenly an outside group named Local Action Solutions spends a fortune to keep you in power. Then you shrug your shoulders and play innocent.
It makes no sense, and the voting public should see right through it.
Halifax County families work too hard to get played for fools.
We need county commissioners who fight for our wallets, not politicians who stay quiet in the room and hide behind middlemen and secret deals.
When you go to vote, remember who stayed quiet when Dominion came for your money.
Our votes are not for sale, and they cannot be bought with dishonest TV ads.
Ephraim Brodsky
Roanoke Rapids