HomeMy WebLinkAbout2026-09-12 Sylive Lee SupportFrom: Sylvie Lee
To: Planning WPC Testimony; Planning LPC Testimony
Subject: Support for Bill 170
Date: Saturday, September 12, 2026 10:58:50 AM
Aloha,
I am writing in support of Bill 170. It is crucial that this bill be passed as data centers should
not be built on the Big Island (or any other island in Hawaiʻi) under any circumstance. A data center would grossly negatively impact the lives of our residents and the precious native
ecology of our already fragile ecosystem. Data centers on the mainland have come with a slew of negative consequences including ruined water systems, noise and air pollution, tanked
values of homes and real estate, and spiked electricity costs. These issues would most likely be exacerbated on a small island where its residents are already struggling with homelessness and
inflation.
While lobbyists may argue that data centers will help provide jobs and economic stimulation for the area, those short-lived "benefits" are not what we truly need here. We would be
exporting our labor and resources to aid large overseas corporations that do not have the interests of our local people at heart and whose end products are actively serving against us.
How is a job working at a data center to uplift one out of poverty if one can still scarcely pay for one's electricity bill or afford to buy a home as a direct result of said data center?
Mahalo nui,
Sylvie Lee