GOLDEN Board of Supervisors Vote TONIGHT!

It's a doubleheader tonight: at 6PM the Board of Supervisors votes to approve the Golden Substation, and at 7:30PM Congressman Subramanyamholds his telephone town hall on the transmission lines. You can make both. Here's why you should.

In This Email

GOLDEN Board of Supervisors Vote TONIGHT | 6PM
How to Speak at the 6PM Meeting
Talking Points for Tonight
TONIGHT | 7:30PM | Rep. Subramanyam's Telephone Town Hall
Also on Tonight's Board Agenda | Briskman and TeKrony's By-Right Item
Tomorrow (9/2) | Lt. Governor's Energy Costs Listening Tour Starts in Sterling
Upcoming dates

And it doesn't stop tonight: tomorrow evening the Lt. Governor - joined by local elected officials and energy experts, including members of our broader delegation - is in Sterling on the Dominion-NextEra merger, the rising cost of your energy bills, and more.

Over the next 36 hours, the Board of Supervisors, School Board members, our congressman, our state senator and delegate, and the Lt. Governor are all taking up Golden to Mars and related issues. Join in where you can - every bit helps.

First deadline: NOON TODAY to sign up if you want to speak at the Board meeting by phone. (Missing it doesn't shut you out - you can still come in person and sign up at the door).

GOLDEN Board of Supervisors Vote TONIGHT | 6PM

The Golden Substation - of Golden to Mars fame - is in front of the Board of Supervisors TONIGHT for approval.

This has happened before. When this application came through the county the last time, it got sent back, because it didn't meet even basic expectations for how you place industrial infrastructure of this scale in a community - right on top of the W&OD Trail, the most used trail in the county. The county rightfully demanded more.

Dominion's answer was to run out the clock. It has known about this site, and needed it, for years. It bought the land for $90 million. It has had every opportunity to get this one right. Instead it waited, came back with the minimum, and used the deadline as a backstop - so it would never have to change a thing. That's one more page of Dominion's playbook.

And tonight, expect Dominion to claim the clock expires. It doesn't. There is no clock forcing the Board to approve the Special Exceptions tonight. Nothing expires if the Board defers them until the design is right. The only thing a deferral costs is Dominion's leverage.

Now Dominion claims there is no choice - because of a familiar tune: reliability. Where have we heard that before?

Let's be clear: reliability is a serious issue, and nobody here says otherwise. It is exactly why Dominion should have stepped up and gotten this right from the beginning - and if it had, we wouldn't be here now. This isn't about defiance - and anyone who claims it is, is deflecting, changing the subject from Dominion's conduct to a community standing up for itself. And with respect: if that is the takeaway, they have not been listening to what this community has actually been saying, consistently, the whole time. It's about setting the expectation: infrastructure this serious gets done right, the first time. The same thing we are still fighting hard for on Golden to Mars.

For years now we have heard the same thing from the Board: this isn't ours to decide. The route, the towers, the height, whether any of it goes underground - all of that sits with the State Corporation Commission in Richmond. It's a familiar refrain in Loudoun by now - so much of what's happening to us, we're told, was decided somewhere else, or decided long ago. And on the transmission line: the Board could advocate - and it did - but that part of it, we were told, was never theirs to decide.

Well, tonight it definitely is.

So if you have been frustrated that our elected officials keep saying their hands are tied - this is the night their hands are not tied.

If you think the Board should weigh in where it actually has a voice, then it needs to hear from you.

How to Speak at the 6PM Meeting

Show up. You can sign up in person at the meeting - see the clerk in the board room starting 30 minutes before it begins. First come, first served, no advance registration, nothing to do beforehand. Just come. Government Center, 1 Harrison Street SE, Leesburg. Public comment starts as early as 6:00 PM and is capped at 90 minutes total, so get there early.

Or call in - sign up by NOON today. Call 703-777-0200 and tell them you want to speak at tonight's business meeting. Miss noon? You can still show up and sign up at the door.

Can't do either? Email the board: bos@loudoun.gov

It is easy. You do not need to be an engineer. You do not need to know the file numbers. You need one sentence:

We expect Dominion to build here like their own families live here too.

That's it. That's the whole speech if you want it to be. Say you live here, say you expect better than the minimum. Two minutes, or less.

And if you want, say why getting these projects right - for all of Loudoun - matters to you. Because livability in Loudoun matters. Because the people who live here matter. We are not a corridor to be built through. We are the reason "done right" has to mean something. This is where our kids go to school. This is where we live. Two minutes of your night tonight is how the Board hears that from you instead of hearing it from Dominion.

Meeting details

Talking Points for Tonight

The ask: defer, don't deny.

The site is on Pacific Boulevard near the Wegmans, right along the W&OD Trail - structures up to 115 feet tall, behind a 20-foot wall, and the transmission lines coming in will be taller still. This substation is required for Golden to Mars AND Aspen to Golden - both lines. Then remember who and what all of this is for: data centers. (The same data centers Dominion told the county weren't driving this) .

None of it is for the people who live here - we just pay for it - and live with it.

The ask is simple: defer, don't deny. Reliability matters - that is exactly why the Board should hold this open until the design is right. That option is on the table tonight, and the Board can take it.

Because whatever the Board accepts becomes the floor for the dozens of applications behind this one. If running out the clock works here, it works on all of them. Supervisors keep asking why applicants never bring more than the minimum. Why would they, when the minimum keeps working?

TONIGHT | 7:30PM | Rep. Subramanyam's Telephone Town Hall

Ashburn Transmission Lines Community Update - Tuesday, September 1, 7:30 to 8:30 PM.

Hosted by Congressman Suhas Subramanyam, joined by School Board Chair April Chandler, School Board Member Amy Riccardi, Senator Kannan Srinivasan, and Delegate JJ Singh.

To join by phone, you have to register. It's also being live streamed on the congressman's Facebook page, which you can watch without signing up.

Have a question? Submit it when you sign up. There's a "submit a question or concern" section on the form, and that's how questions make it into the event - they aren't taken live during the call. So write yours down now, while you're registering.

This is the routing conversation, and it is very much still live. The congressman has been pushing for a Golden to Mars route along Route 606, on federal land east of Dulles, instead of through our neighborhoods and past our schools. He met with NOAA Administrator Dr. Neil Jacobs directly about it. He raised it with MWAA and the FAA. Those agencies have indicated a federal-land route is not impossible - the opposite of what Dominion told the SCC when it dismissed that option. He has also written to the SCC commissioners about the above-ground proposals.

His statement after the NOAA meeting

His letter to the SCC

Look at who's on this call: our congressman, our school board representative and our school board chair, our state senator, and our delegate. Every one of them has consistently shown up for this community on Golden to Mars - in Richmond, at the SCC, with the federal agencies, in the school board room. So have some members of the Board of Supervisors - two of whom you'll find in the next section - and other elected leaders. They all keep advocating for us. Engaging, and getting your question in, is how we keep showing up for them. It's how our representatives know this community hasn't gone quiet, and it's how they keep pushing.

Also on Tonight's Board Agenda | Briskman and TeKrony's By-Right Item

The substation isn't the only reason tonight's Board meeting matters. As flagged last week, Supervisors Juli Briskman and Laura TeKrony are bringing their item to immediately expire the grandfathering policy that has let an estimated 10 million square feet of data center space through the county's by-right, staff-only review - no board approval, no public hearing.

Here's what that means. When the county ended by-right approval for data centers and moved them to a permit process with public hearings, projects already in the pipeline were grandfathered in under the old rules. That carve-out is what's covering roughly 10 million square feet. Briskman and TeKrony want it to expire now instead of running its course. Both voted against it when it passed last year. If it ends, more of these projects come before the Board in public instead of getting approved administratively with nobody watching.

The Loudoun Now story | The Loudoun Times story

And this is separate from the moratorium, which comes to the Board on September 15 . That's the proposed pause on new data center applications - and, as proposed, on new substations too - while the county finishes Phase 2 of its zoning rewrite. The board voted 6-1 in July to have staff bring back options, and the county attorney has cautioned that a moratorium may not be legal in Virginia, so what actually comes back on the 15th is an open question. Tonight's item deals with what's already in the pipeline; the 15th is about what comes next. More on that as it approaches.

Tomorrow (9/2) | Lt. Governor's Energy Costs Listening Tour Starts in Sterling

A note before this one: this email runs in date order, not order of importance. There is simply a lot happening - and the fact that the Lt. Governor is opening a statewide tour here, in our part of Loudoun, tells you where this fight sits on Virginia's map.

Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi's Energy Costs Listening Tour - a series of community conversations across the Commonwealth on the proposed Dominion-NextEra takeover, your utility bills, and grid reliability - starts right here tomorrow night. And it connects to everything above.

Dominion is asking Virginia to approve a $67 billion merger with NextEra to create what the companies call the world's largest regulated electric utility - pitched on building more in Virginia, faster. Loudoun's growth is the engine behind that pitch. If this is how Dominion treats the county driving the dealwhile it still needs Virginia's approval, what do we think happens after? And what do we think happens to our electric bills? Aren't we already paying enough - in more ways than one?

This takeover would reshape Virginia's electric system for decades, yet state regulators are currently required to complete their review in just six months. Hashmi is calling for a more thorough process, including time for legislative oversight, so the decision gets made transparently and with Virginia families - not out-of-state interests - at the forefront.

And think about who we would be dealing with. Today it's Dominion - headquartered in Richmond, answerable to Virginia. After the takeover, we'd be one piece of the largest utility company in the world, run from Florida, with a track record that deserves a hard look.

The format is built for participation: local elected officials and energy experts, questions from the room, and a chance to share how this could affect your family. If your electric bill has been climbing, this is the room to say so.

September 2, 6:00-7:30 PM, Dreamscapes Performing Arts Center, 21014 Whitfield Place, Sterling.

Loudoun Now and the Loudoun Times continue to do excellent work on Golden to Mars and the broader issues, and please keep checking nopowerlines.org for updates.

Thank you, as always, for staying engaged - particularly if you made it this far down the email!

If you've been venting about all of this in a group chat, on social media, or across the kitchen table - tonight, say it where it changes something. You'll never have to wonder whether it would have mattered. Come to Leesburg and/or call in tonight - 703-777-0200 by noon to get on the phone list. And come out for the Lt. Governor's listening tour stop in Sterling tomorrow. Two nights, back to back, to be heard on all of it.

Upcoming dates

9/1 (TONIGHT): Board of Supervisors Business Meeting - Golden Substation (Item 14.e). Public comment from 6PM, sign up in person at the door. To speak by phone instead, sign up by NOON: 703-777-0200. Meeting information | Agendas and packets

9/1 (TONIGHT): Rep. Subramanyam Telephone Town Hall, 7:30PM. Register (and submit your question) | Watch live

9/2: Lt. Gov. Hashmi's town hall, 6PM - Dreamscapes Performing Arts Center, 21014 Whitfield Place, Sterling

9/8: Loudoun County School Board Meeting

9/9: Board of Supervisors Public Hearing

9/15: Board of Supervisors Business Meeting - Data Center Moratorium

9/22: Loudoun County School Board Meeting

Filed underThe pause Grandfathering Golden to Mars Golden Substation