Data Centers, Comedy, and the Quest to Live Forever (Hour 1)

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From Washington to Hollywood and right back to Wisconsin.

It's Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

Connecting the dots on the stories shaping our world with smart takes, sharp humor, and plenty of personality.

You know, I really expected more professional behavior from you.

It's news and culture without the noise.

Yeah, come on.

Here's Pete Schwabba.

Dude.

And Greg Bach.

Dude.

Welcome to Nightlight, ladies and gentlemen.

Happy Tuesday.

Great to have you with us tonight.

On this gorgeous night in our beautiful state of Wisconsin, I am Pete Schwabba coming to you live and in person from northeast Wisconsin, more specifically, Christmas City, USA, also known as Marinette, Wisconsin.

Joining me just down the coast from Radio Park in Racine is Mr. Greg Bach.

Hey buddy, how are you?

Hello everybody, welcome to Tuesday, it's not Monday.

Well, you

sure sound

happy.

Well, you know, I mean, I'm feeling good.

I'm hanging out with friends.

It is a nice day out, even though I guess according to my weather app, it's, is it sprinkling?

No, it's just mostly cloudy out.

But yeah, I'll take that over below zero.

I'll take it too.

It's a great day.

It's good to be alive.

It's good to be on the air.

And Dom Lee is joining us from his favorite chair in Madison, Wisconsin.

Hey, Dom, how are you?

I'm doing pretty good.

It is my favorite chair, by the way.

It's nice and cushiony and warm and soft.

It's everything I ever wanted.

It's not going to make you go tickle, is it?

All right.

You could just say, hey, it's a nice

chair, dude.

You don't have to get

all weird.

I

just love this chair,

you know?

There's a lot of description of a chair.

Hey, let's get something out of the way tonight, folks, right away.

We have two great guests, but I will tell you about them.

But I think first we should get to our contest, our Accelerator Summer Multi-State Civic Media Text-to-Win Contest.

Great.

You want to fill us in?

Absolutely.

Every day we have seven chances to win $100 and a Wisconsin Dells prize pack.

And all you need to do is get out your Civic Media app, go to your favorite

station maybe WA UK and text in the keyword when we give it to you and it's your chance to win plus every single entry gets you into a grand prize drawing for $250 in gas $250 in groceries and who doesn't need that in their lives so we'll do this this hour the keyword will be good this hour and you can enter once only once via the civic media app if you don't have the civic media app download it from wherever you get your apps

and you can call, you can text, you can listen live, and you can participate in things like the Accelerator Summer Text to Win Multi-State Contest.

So without any further ado, let's get to this hour's keyword, which is...

Rain, R-A-I-N, like, oh my gosh, it's gonna be rain with cash.

See, raining doesn't work.

I'm gonna make it rain with cash when I win this prize.

So the word is rain, R-A-I-N.

Text that in right now via the Civic Media app.

You have the rest of the hour to do that.

If you missed anything, and what you're here right now, so you've missed nothing, but we'll repeat it throughout the hour, just in case people do miss it.

But again, the keyword is rain, R-A-I-N, for your chance to win $100 and a Wisconsin Dells prize pack.

And finally, one last thing regarding the contest, if you get a kickback message from us saying, hey, follow us on social media, sign up for the newsletter, do that, you'll get one extra entry, you only get it once per entire contest, not every time, not every day.

But again, text that in, good luck, and here we go.

At prices like that, you can't afford not to play the acceleration contest, right?

All right.

Well, I can't

play.

I can't play.

I can't either.

I'm not allowed.

I so want to make a joke about that, but I'm not going to.

I know.

We have a really fun show tonight, folks.

Joining us at 535 will be Brian Halverson.

I'm sorry, Blaine Halverson.

He is a data center activist.

He's going to talk to us about an upcoming event called Uniting West Wisconsin.

And we will talk to Blaine.

A lot of people have concerns about data centers, rightfully so.

The concerns are valid.

And this event sounds like they're trying to educate people and bring people together.

So we'll talk about that with Blaine at 535 after the news.

And then in hour number two, our pal Dan Davies comes by.

He is a Northeast Wisconsin based actor.

And he's a celebrity.

He's a big shot.

Well, he's a big shot northeast Wisconsin, you guys, but he's also a big shot in Africa.

Wow.

He is in the African Filmmaking Hall of Fame or something like that.

I don't know.

Honestly, God, he mentioned the last time he was here.

I don't remember specifically where this particular African Acting Hall of Fame is.

But we'll ask Dan about that.

And we're going to ask him.

This is exciting, too.

There was a movie shot in 1975 called The Giant Spider Invasion.

Yeah.

Bill Rabain made a film.

He was a he came here from overseas, settled in Chicago.

And then he settled in northern Wisconsin and shot this movie there.

And Alan Hale was in it from Gilligan's Island and Barbara Hale, no relation.

And there were a couple other people in it that are sort of well known.

But they made this film.

It has a cult following.

And Dan is part of a group of guys who shot new scenes for it with Bill Rebane's blessing and they splintered them into the film.

Very excited to see what they've come up with.

I believe the film is done.

We'll get an update from Dan.

It will be playing around the state and he's involved in a couple other projects too, including Greg.

Yesterday, we had Daniel Wheeler, Danny Wheels on the show, talking about the film he's in the process of making called My Brother and Bigfoot.

And Dan is in that as well.

So Dan stays very busy.

He's a big time fixture on the independent film scene here in Wisconsin and in Africa.

We'll get all the deeds.

It's a quick question.

Quick question.

Am I the only one not making a film around this place?

Like, I feel like everyone else is making movies and I'm not the only one not making movies.

I feel like I need to make a movie.

Should I make a movie?

I'll make a movie.

Well, there's one solution for that, Greg.

Point your camera at Dom and start shooting.

And Dom, I think Dom's got those boyish good looks, especially with his new haircut.

I think he's your leading man right

there.

I think what we'll do is we'll do a Richard Linklater approach where I just film him over the course of like four or five months as his hair grows.

And then the final scene is him just regretfully getting another haircut because he realizes how much he misses it, which is more of a commentary on commerce and capitalism and our own inability to let go of the past.

It's so,

I mean, I know you're joking obviously.

And that would be, that would interest both of us for sure.

So I have two investors right

now.

Yes.

But boyhood honestly is one of my favorite movies of all time.

It was a best picture nominee in like 2014, 2015.

That movie was so great because the whole film, I just kept waiting for something to happen.

Like it does in movies, but that movie is so real.

And it captured life perfectly and growing up perfectly.

What it's like for this kid.

Man, that's a treasure.

I love that film.

And he's doing it again.

I don't know if you guys know this.

He's shooting a new film where it's going to take place over the course of 20 years with the same actors, much like he did in boyhood, although that was only over, I think, 10 or 12 years.

I think

15.

I think I was 15.

Was it 15?

Okay.

Well,

this is even more ambitious.

I just like the

fact that Richard Linklater came from Slacker, which I have

a

huge affinity for early 90s indie flicks.

like the grainy shot for like the low budgets and all that stuff.

And yet he still has never, I mean, he's done some big budget movies, but he's really stuck to his own thing.

And he's always doing what makes him happy.

And like, I think the Netflix movie he did a while ago, like, yeah, whatever, but like, he still is making movies that I feel like for him gets him.

Happy about doing the job and I just have an immense amount of respect for him for his him as a filmmaker

He's outstanding and I'll tell you another thing that I like about Richard Linklater are the Before midnight films before midnight before sunrise after midnight.

I can't think of all the titles right now, but he makes Such good like this is Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy talking.

Yeah, that's the movie but he makes it interesting He keeps them on the move and then at the end of the show on the first one which I think was

before sunrise, maybe.

I think so, yeah.

Yeah, he shows a still shot of where, of all the places they had been.

They're just two people that meet on a train, and he convinces her to get off the train and spend the day with them, because he has to catch another train.

And in that interim, they do all this cool stuff, but the end of the movie shows all the places they were at.

And it's like this melancholy thing that shows, look at the energy that was created by people in this space, and now look at the space without the people.

Just brilliant, great trilogy, if you get a chance to check it out.

It's before sunrise, before sunset, and before midnight.

And they were released in the span of, it looks like, nearly 20 years.

With the same actors.

Yeah.

And we learned about their backstories as the films went on, and they met in places they planned to meet six years later, all kinds of stuff.

But really good kind of, I guess I would call them romantic comedies a little bit, but mostly romantic dramas, I guess.

Yeah.

Just really good films.

Okay, so we got that out of the way.

And let's, I think, without further ado,

Fellows, we should get to our question of the night.

Let's talk about the question.

Okay, question.

Question.

Question.

Pregunta.

Question.

Question.

Okay, I have a question.

Questions.

This question.

Domanda.

Question.

Questions.

What is the ideal age to live to?

That is our question of the night folks and it is based on this great article I read on Yahoo news there.

They have this new therapy Trying to pull it up right here bear with me.

It was on business insider actually where they have age reversing an age reversing drug and they

just

injected the first ever Into a human very recently goes in through the eye

What obviously it goes in through the eyes.

You might you might not you want to live that long

just kill me

Yeah, no kidding, but it's the first ever reverse aging drug and it really got me thinking like what how long do you want to live?

No forever, then you're a vampire and vampires just want to die so It got me thinking what is the perfect age to live to that is tonight's question of the night 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5 civic

Let us know.

You can also text us in on the app or if you're watching the radio on the stream at YouTube, Facebook or what we previously called Twitter and still call Twitter.

Drop us a stream comment and let us know.

We got some wise and Heimer answers already.

I love it.

That just sounds like absolute science fiction to me.

Like we're just that kind of thing.

Just you're asking for some sort of mutant.

And like the drug alone is one thing.

And then when you say we injected into your eye, that's where I tap out.

Like, and we'll talk more about this in a second hour.

But I just feel like we, again, I think, I think Pat Noswald said at once science, it's all about, it's all about shoulda and not coulda.

So.

Yeah, and Jeff Bezos is one of the competitors for this market.

Of course it's

rich guys.

Another competitor is Sam Altman.

Right, because they want to live forever because they think they deserve it.

Eli Lilly.

So it's interesting, but it makes me think if they can do this, why can't they cure cancer?

It seems like that almost seems easier than making people live longer and more attainable.

Well, I saw a picture the other day.

It was Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and one other billionaire, the four of them.

And I just said on the comment, I said, the combined total of these men right here, a slice of their personal wealth could end hunger on earth.

Right.

But

they want to live longer.

They want to go to space.

They want to make flying cars.

And they want to make sure that you as a taxpayer can never afford a house, especially if your kids are out there like struggling.

But they want to stay young.

They want to stay alive forever.

God knows they, let them have it.

Let them have the earth.

And what's so weird about that, Greg, is like, you know, if you've studied science at all, and I wasn't great in science at school, it fascinates me now.

When you look at what the earth had to go through to have life and you're focused on going to Mars or wherever it is.

Yeah.

you're not respecting what's happened already and how we're even able to exist on this planet.

So it's kind of an insult to me.

I don't disagree.

It's a personal insult to me, Greg, these billionaires.

Gotta respond until they

offer you the drug and then they're like,

oh,

I'm aboard, I'm aboard.

Yeah, I'll take it.

Hey, welcome to Nightlight.

Folks, as I mentioned, we have our question of the night.

What is the age?

We've already lost it here.

What is the age, the perfect age to live to in your opinion?

Let us know.

We'll refresh the keyword too when we come back after this very short break.

We've got great guests tonight.

Fun question.

We're going to have a few laughs.

You are here at a perfect

night.

Perfect Tuesdays.

It's nightlife with Pete Schwabbe and Greg Bach on the Civic Media Network.

Welcome back.

This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

It's Tuesday in the state of Wisconsin and we are joined by Dom Lee who is in Madison producing the show.

We are the Yatterhey Triangle.

And if you're watching the stream, you'll know exactly what that means.

It's how we're composed guys.

It's our arrangement.

And it's working.

Our text-to-win contest is in full swing.

Accelerate your summer multi-stake text-to-win contest.

This hour's keyword, which you have to send in on the Civic Media app and only on the app if you want to be eligible, is rain.

R-A-I-N rain.

So text that in and good luck.

You could win big, big prizes.

It's easy to play and why would you not play?

Honestly, guys.

It doesn't make any sense.

It's a text.

It's a tax.

You're going to do that anyway.

One word, four letters.

And yeah, one syllable.

Gas, money, groceries, everything.

We have coming up after the news is will be our new friend, Blaine Halverson.

He is an activist and he's going to join us to talk about an event called Uniting West Wisconsin.

Talking about data centers and concerns and it's a big event and he's going to tell us all about it then in hour number two.

We have our pal actor based in northeast Wisconsin.

Dan Davies will join us to talk about the reboot of the Giant Spider Invasion, a film from 1975 that's just, I've seen it.

It's great.

It's so fun to watch.

It's a cult film.

They added new scenes and I'm very excited to see what they did.

Dan will be here.

He's one of the guys who spearheaded that operation.

So we'll talk to Dan at 6.20 tonight and then we'll read your text after the top of the hour.

So Greg, yesterday we were talking about

This game last night the

NBA

finals and I've always been a big a huge basketball fan I have not a few years ago I had to kind of commit to a sport because they take a lot of time like you're a baseball fan 162 games three-hour games I don't have that kind of time and obviously I know you don't watch every game but I made football kind of my follow because

it's

16 17 weeks and that's it

Same with the NBA, 82 games.

I've kind of fallen out of, I still like it.

And if my bulls were in the finals, I'd be watching and watching every game, probably, sadly.

But last night, last night, Donald Trump, our president attended the game, game three between the Knicks and the Spurs at Madison Square Garden.

There's all kinds of controversy.

It did not go well.

He got slipped off and booed as he was going into the arena.

He got booed in the...

Did you see that Fox News, though, said they were cheers?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it's almost like how would you, they had to pay almost a billion dollars to admit they lied to their viewers every night.

And they still are number one.

What to do with that?

But it's hard to believe they would come up with something like that.

But he did get food and he didn't seem to care.

It said here, it says, I thought it was great.

I mean, I thought it was amazing actually.

You mean when they had the camera on me, I thought it was very good.

It was certainly amazing.

It was, I think mostly cheers.

It was loud and very enthusiastic.

If you haven't yet seen the clip of the national anthem being sung at that game,

Had clips of like, you know, it was on the big their big jumbo tron in the middle of the arena Showing the the singer and the players and then the American flag then it clips to Donald Trump in the suite where he's at and the booze are so unified and so loud that Right there

20,000 people in unison and in New York City to get 20,000 people to agree on one thing.

That is amazing.

And they were absolutely upset.

And not only that, people, they're like, if he comes here and we lose and they did, the Knicks lost last night

and now it's 2-0.

Absolutely.

So, yeah, it really wasn't the smartest idea, but I don't know.

There has to be something wrong with his brain chemistry because

He truly went there.

And I think in his brain, he believes that, I think he believes that they were cheering for him.

He believes that people love him because he needs to be loved.

He's a little boy whose dad never said, I love you.

So he goes for attention and he equates that to love.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're right.

He equates attention, good or bad or publicity, should I say more accurately with love.

And this is very similar to his response that came out today.

I think I saw this on NBC.

but why he stormed off the other

day

in his interview with Kristen Welker on Meet the Press.

And he got very contentious.

We talked about this last night on the show too.

And he stormed off and he called her a liar and all the networks, including his beloved CBS.

And he stormed off.

And then today he said, I was in a bad mood because of the rain.

Well,

you're the president.

You think under pressure, you'd be able to handle a little bad weather while you're inside and sheltered.

But what an excuse.

And do people buy that?

Yes, some people do.

Of course they do.

That's why he's still around.

And the press does not push harder than they should.

And Kristen Welker even said he's going to come back and do an interview.

No, don't give it to him.

Don't give him this.

Right.

And also, I'm surprised because the rain for me usually puts me to sleep.

I mean, if you watched the game last night, he fell asleep many times in his box.

And the guy

next to him was laughing.

I didn't think the text when Contest could do something like that.

Oh,

Josh!

I had to.

I

had to.

Boom!

Tom with a zinger.

That is amazing right there.

I'm done talking.

There you go.

Believe it or not, that word was picked before last night's or the events of this past weekend.

But you're right.

It's so bizarre.

If he keeps up this behavior, he doesn't stand a chance in the election in 2028.

Constitution or not,

baby.

This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach and joined as always by our pal, Dom Lee, who is producing the show.

We've got lots more to come.

We're going to take a short break for news.

And when we come back, Blaine Halverson will be here telling us about a really cool event that is helping us address the concerns we all have about data centers.

And I say all because I think even people that are pro data center still have concerns.

So we'll talk about that after the news.

Lots to come.

Don't go anywhere.

This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach on the Civic Media Network.

Welcome back.

This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

Great to have you with us tonight on this Tuesday, folks.

And a shout out to Daniel Barry Sports Highlights, who dropped us a stream comment saying, what's up guys?

Happy Tuesday.

He is like clockwork.

Yeah.

That's

awesome.

Daniel Barry Sports Highlights 58 51.

You can set your watch by Daniel's Tuesday texts as much as you can by Dom's haircut.

High and tight.

There it is.

Hey, high and tight.

Handsome's all get out.

There you go.

That's how we do it.

Welcome back.

Our keyword this hour, folks, for our Accelerate Your Summer Text-to-Win Multi-State Contest is rain, R-A-I-N, R-A-I-N.

Text that in on the app and on the app only.

And you make yourself eligible for our daily prize of 100 bucks in cash and a little Wisconsin Dells prize package.

And you're automatically eligible in doing that for the grand prizes of 250 bucks in a gas card and 250 bucks as a grocery cart.

And who doesn't need that?

Maybe our next guest needs that.

Maybe he doesn't.

I don't know.

We can ask him.

We can come out guns a blaze and let's get right to it.

Our first guest of the evening is Blaine Halverson.

He joins us to talk about a very cool event that he is behind called Uniting West Wisconsin, and I will let him explain more.

Blaine, how are you?

Welcome to the show.

I'm great.

Well, thank you for having me.

I appreciate it.

Our pleasure.

Tell us a little bit if you would.

I know you're kind of the man behind this operation with other people and this group, but how did you get there?

Well, tell us a little bit about you.

Well, I mean, I'm from a nominee.

And last summer, we were in Colorado for vacation in the middle of vacation.

My wife was looking at news from home and she said, they're trying to put a server farm out on County Road B. And I go, is that like a bot farm?

I didn't have any idea what it was.

And then she said, data center.

And all I could think of was like action movies.

I think it's an Argyle.

There's this huge data center scene that's pretty cool.

And I didn't have any reason to be afraid of it.

I didn't know anything about it.

But as it came forward, it became clear that people were very concerned.

And what was ultimately concerning is when there was massive turnout at an annexation hearing, and they just ignored the will of the people and moved right forward.

And that was difficult.

But since then,

Our mayor actually at the time in September sent out a letter to the developers saying at this time they weren't interested in the TID.

And it's been in limbo since then.

But we have passed an ordinance that changes our regulations and zoning for data centers.

So there's some protection there, but we're still kind of in limbo.

But in the meantime, where this came, went to Pete, is at some point there was nothing.

there was not a lot going on for ours.

And, and I just said, you know, we need to let's get to the other communities, right?

Yeah, let's talk to them about being proactive rather than reactive instead of playing whack-a-mole like we've been having to do for all this time.

Well, that's a very good point you bring up because I feel like last year 2025 was the year that the veil was taken off of all of these because these are these are nationwide.

There are thousands of them nationwide.

And these companies have really done a good job.

And I say, excuse me, good and huge bunny Fufu air quotes right there of walking into municipalities, putting down these NDAs and contracts and talking backdoor deals with people saying, we want to do this, don't worry about anything else.

We got that all taken care of.

And then no one's aware.

And then all of a sudden, you've got this huge

slab of concrete in the middle of what used to be a farmland.

But last year, with the work that you guys have been doing and other groups in Wisconsin and across the country, we're seeing more celebrities talking about this.

It really has come to be that these companies who want to build data centers now have to move a little bit more gingerly because they're not the worst kept secret.

Right.

Well, and they're kind of stuck because they're kind of forced to move more gingerly.

But the momentum's turning against them, right?

Because the whole thing they were doing before was trying to move this through.

They were trying to get your city administrator, your economic development coordinator to carry the ball down to the 10 yard line before anyone found out, right?

And then rush out onto this vertical playing field where you've got billion dollar tech companies and teams of attorneys and investor owned utilities and federal and state regulatory authorities all coming downhill at some township, right?

And what chance do they have?

Especially as Madison keeps taking away more and more local control.

Our guest is Blaine Halverson.

He is a data center activist.

He joins us tonight to talk about a really powerful sounding event.

I don't know if that's the right word, but it sounds like this is going to be a force.

So tell us, Blaine, what can people expect if they attend Uniting West Wisconsin?

I'm getting that right.

Yep.

Yep.

Yeah,

there's well, there's actually two elements of this.

There's a saturday night event um and a sunday event and on saturday night we've got of course charlie barons is going to be there and um this whole idea came out of a conversation he and i had back in march um where we were talking about that whack-a-mole thing and the desire to be proactive and i said i think i think west wisconsin's the opportunity to do that right now because people have been watching they were they were worried about the monomony situation and how it might impact them and they saw

the chaos that ensued in Beaver Dam and Port Washington and all the hurt feelings and just the uproar and just in a mood, the people right here in a mood to be proactive.

So Charlie's going to be there.

We've got several people from around the state, from Caledonia, from Beaver Dam, from Port Washington, from

Rock County coming up to speak and participate as their own local folks as well.

And we've got the Soren and Bo from Them Coolie Boys, which is an Eau Claire Band.

And they're going to perform in Madeleine Bailey, who's from this area is also going to perform.

And got BJ Holler as the author is going to share a story.

And it's gonna be, it's different than the others in the sense that the others were all, the other events that have been had around the state were in reaction to something popping up and us needing to get the word out and get people information, right?

This is an opportunity to be proactive and to frame this and say, hey, torches, villagers and torches, isn't an energy that goes far.

It's fuel that burns fast and bright.

And we're most, we're strongest when we're focused on the things that we're united on and ignoring the things we're divided on to get something done.

And this is, I think since, since 2001, this is the single most uniting issue that I've seen that has brought people together.

And if people want to lend their voice to the, they can't make the event, but they want to lend their voice to the movement.

You do, you did put a petition up on your website.

We will have that website on our show notes.

Tell us more about that.

Well, that petition is, is, uh, for, for West Wisconsin, but it can be a model for others.

We're hoping.

Um, and what it is, um, basically it's calling for transparency.

It's calling for accountability.

It's calling for protections.

and for local voice.

And the specific things we're asking for is we're asking for, what we're saying, a 12 month moratorium minimum, but adopted town by town, village by village, city by city, because Madison's not helping.

And then we're asking, literally calling on the West Central Wisconsin Regional Plan Commission to convene a series of public meetings and to host a shared conversation about this.

And then to facilitate, develop a recommended minimum

kind of common regional standard that communities can commit to adopt.

So that's kind of the direction we're going with that petition, but it's something others can do in other regions.

And you know, we call it a region, but the whole idea of this event is to help us understand that when it comes to hyperscale development, the impacts don't, they don't stay within your city limits or your county lines, right?

So it calls for a bigger definition of neighborhood.

And that's what we're trying to enforce is that, or what we're trying to put forward is the idea that we're neighbors.

You could live in Hudson and you could live in Eau Claire and your neighbors, you know, to share an offer.

We share a highway system.

We share a power grid, all of the things that, you know, what happens in one community affects the other.

Unitingwestwisconsin.glmu.org is where the petition is, folks, just to reiterate if you're interested and want to check that out.

Blaine, what are your biggest concerns personally about data centers?

For those of people who are just joining us or hearing about this event, they might not know much about data centers.

What are the concerns you have and what are the general concerns?

It's kind of hard to articulate in the sense that it's so...

What really concerns me is that our state and federal government are circumventing the free market to give advantages to multi-billion dollar and multi-trillion dollar companies at the same time they are taking protections away from small communities and that these kind of hyperscale developments

Are not being done in a way that are sustainable for these communities.

Yeah, so they're getting all the mitigation They're getting all the protection.

They really are going in with very little risk because if they lose 50 million dollars, it's it's like a rounding error,

you

know Meanwhile, if they if they walk out on a tid and leave a building sitting there that's 700,000 square feet in a village or a town that can't do anything about it

that potentially bankrupt the town or a city or a village.

And they're so focused on needing to be first at something.

And I don't think anyone stops to think.

I haven't had anyone who can answer this question.

Can you think of one thing, one example, where exponential rapid growth is a positive thing?

Well, I would say that.

When I think of exponential rapid growth, I don't think of data centers when I think of exponential rapid growth I think of investment in communities and schools and in businesses that allow people to get good jobs Whereas with data centers one of the things I always think about as a concern is the residual effect that you've talked about and we've talked with other people about that you know again like Let's say data center is built.

It's going swimmingly.

It doesn't guarantee thousands of jobs to anybody in the community, but also one day

as technology shrinks and gets more and more compact and they don't need 700,000 square feet anymore.

They're like, well, we're going to go.

And so 25, 30 years down the road.

your kids or your grandkids are going to be looking at this huge building that no one can do anything with because no business wants to come and utilize it because they don't need it.

So again, it's there are so like when I went to the rapid growth, I don't I do not think of rapid growth when I think of data centers, I just think of a billion dollar business just throwing down concrete and saying we're here.

I'm talking about the data centers.

I'm talking about the AI industry, the level of investment they're putting into it and how fast they're trying to do it.

And what I'm getting at is rapid growth, even in economic development is dangerous.

Because if you grow too fast, you can't keep up.

You can't levy the taxes without it being a problem, especially in this situation.

You're getting that net new construction and you have to raise the levy or you lose that opportunity.

But in the meantime, the data center is not paying the taxes.

They're paying into the TID, which means all that money is having to be shared by the people who are already paying taxes in the first place.

And that's not being said.

And we already also just pressed Scott Balch just did some research and figured out that there actually is no net gain.

to almost any school district with the data center, because as you gain tax dollars, you lose equivalent dollars in state aid.

So unless you're a very wealthy school district, there's no benefit to your school district.

Very well said.

All right, we'll have more with our guest, Blaine Halverson.

He is a data center activist, and he's going to tell us more about this cool event that he is behind in Western Wisconsin.

And last morning, this is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bogg on the Civic Media Network.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.

Welcome back to Nightlight.

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nearing the end of hour one here, so I would be remiss if I did not remind all of you the keyword to accelerate your summer text-to-win multi-state contest here at Civic Media.

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I'd say a hundred pucks.

Are we giving away hockey pucks?

No, we're giving away a hundred little versions of that guy from the real world San Francisco, which is a very old reference.

I get.

So that's impressive.

Thank you very much.

I have that.

Oh, that's that's the stuff that I have up here that that means I don't know math.

So, okay.

Oh, that was that was beautiful.

Just for this one moment, Greg, it was spectacular.

So thank you.

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This hour's keyword is rain, R-A-I-N rain text that in on the app.

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Also, our question of the night is

What is the perfect age to live to?

We did this because there are billionaires trying to reverse the course of time and live longer and reverse the aging process.

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Leave us a comment on the stream.

And we will read those texts after the news in hour number two.

Right now, we have a few more minutes with our pal, Blaine Halverson.

He is a data center activist and organizing the event, Uniting West Wisconsin.

Blaine, how did Charlie Barron, he's a comedian and just a legend here in Wisconsin, how did he get, if you know, when did these data centers get on his radar?

And when did he become an activist?

Because for a comedian, that's impressive because

You can lose a few followers, although I think, you know, the data centers are, I think everybody has concerns, but how did he get involved in this campaign?

Well, he, I mean, I remember the first time we noticed it as he posted about the Port Washington thing, when the Port, when the Common Council just ignored all the people who filed in there, right?

Just kind of the thing that happened to Menominee, right?

And that was what got him riled up.

And he went on and made a video about it, showing, expressing some frustration.

And then all of a sudden he was on the news and then Ted Mitzki was on the news and then pretty soon they were having a meeting and all this kind of fun stuff and Yeah, and he just really it's about the same kind of things with him.

It's about transparency.

It's about accountability It's about local decisions just about not circumventing the will of the people right and And it's a sincerely held belief by him.

I can it's very very earnest

Well, and good for him.

And it has to be because like I said, you're a comedian for him to go out on a limb like this.

It's admirable.

Yeah.

Now, with the support of people like Charlie Barron's, and I just saw a video recently of Brad Paisley speaking against a data center in Nashville.

And that makes me ask the question here.

You know, in 2024, we weren't really talking about this a whole lot.

And in 2025, as I said, it kind of became the watershed year for people to find out what's going

on.

What are the, what is the evolution on the conversations you're having or hearing from people who may have like six months a year ago said, well, I don't know who cares.

It's a data center.

It's whatever to the evolving concerns of folks that are in your part of Wisconsin or just in general at all.

What are people saying?

I mean, I think it's around what can we do?

Yeah, right.

And it really is.

What can we do?

And they're recognizing that if you're waiting to negotiate terms in a development agreement, you've lost because you're going against the best lawyers in the world and against all the money.

You have an opportunity.

The law allows you as a municipality or a county or a town to create rules and advance.

Yeah.

So we get that opportunity.

And the laws really still aren't good enough.

I mean, what I mean by that is they need less restriction on these small communities when it comes to being able to say no.

They shouldn't have to.

I mean, we just had a situation here where a lawyer came into one of the small communities and steamrolled them in an appeals.

hearing, um, over a data center, a little small little data center that they turned down and steamrolled them.

And they had to, they felt like they had to capitulate because they were so worried about being sued.

Um, and that just shouldn't be the case.

If you're a small community with a, a small budget and a small tax base, you know, you shouldn't be having multi-billion dollar, uh, buildings being built in your community.

It's bullying.

It's just high price bullying.

It sounds like absolutely.

Yeah.

Blaine, we have about a minute left.

In regard to the event, is it half entertainment, half message, and half educating?

What are you hoping people walk away with after they attend?

I want them to feel the connection they have about being from this place.

I want them to feel the connection to the place and the shared responsibility for it.

And I want them to recognize that when they start to think of each other as neighbors,

then all of a sudden different conversations can happen than the ones that are happening.

And all of a sudden, it goes beyond that, it goes beyond like, it goes beyond the point where you find kind of that neighborhood voice, that corporate voice, right?

That speaks together and that all of a sudden unlocks things that weren't unlocked before.

We have leverage, we just need each other to do it.

That's great stuff.

Unitingwestwisconsin.glmu.org.

The event takes place Saturday, June 13th at 6pm.

Doors open at 5pm.

They're going to have Charlie Barron's, Madeline Bailey.

Who's the guy?

Was it the Cooley Boys again you said?

What was that guy's

name?

I was a store and staff and Bojangly.

Yes.

It sounds like a really fun event.

Yeah, we

have a Sunday event too.

That's

on the page

that you can see.

That's a

smaller and kind of more dig deep event.

Outstanding.

Blaine, thanks so much for your time.

Hope the event is a smash and is exactly what you hope it to be.

And thank you for saving us from data centers or at least trying.

I'm trying at least.

We appreciate your time tonight, buddy.

And have a great night.

This is Nightlight with Peach Wabba and Greg Bach.

You have about 30 seconds to get in that keyword.

R-A-I-N rain is the keyword.

We will come back and read your...

responses to our question tonight, and then welcome Dan Davies at 620, a Northeast Wisconsin-based actor who's joining us to talk about the new iteration of the giant spider invasion.

Maybe Blaine should get an event around that as well.

This is Nightlight with Peach Wabba and Greg Locke.

We're coming right back.

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