The road to an AI disaster is paved by rubber spines of small-town politicians.
An open letter to the mayor of Port Washington, Ted Neitzke IV, originally published on substack by Farmer Rox Writes on Dec 03, 2025.
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Those who are selling us out to big tech have a name, a face, and an email address. In this case, I’m sharing an email I sent to Mayor TID (oops, I mean Ted) Neitzke of Port Washington today. Here’s his email in case anyone else also has words for him: tneitzke@portwashingtonwi.gov
Here it goes.
Dear Ted,
Last night at your Port Washington town board meeting, I watched a woman get thrown to the ground and handcuffed. She was dragged out by her ankles, in front of my child and everyone else. She was there to exercise her civic duty to defend our community and the greater Great Lakes region from the 2000-acre hyper-scale data center you snuck through, per Vantage’s preference for discretion from the public.
She was sitting down when she was pulled out of her chair by multiple officers who then piled on top of her. When she said the word “recall”, your police department immediately escalated, as if they were looking for any excuse to intimidate her. She wasn’t just any random person, either. She was the champion behind the petition that collected over a thousand signatures. She was a threat to Vantage, and to your fragile ego. You knew who she was before she even spoke. While she was being hogtied, you cowered in your chambers.
Two other women who came to her aid were also arrested.
I want you to know that, while you might feel victimized by people’s outrage, that is not an excuse to abuse your power and hide behind political repression. I want you to know that this is personal, for you as it is for everyone who has and will be affected by your actions, and there is no way for you to emerge from this unscathed. It will follow you in your political career and beyond. It’s not just a bad look, it’s a legacy you are building for yourself that considers land, water, and people as little more than collateral damage, just like the generative AI companies you fed us to.
Open AI’s chatGPT offered to write 16-year-old Adam Raine’s suicide note. It has encouraged vulnerable kids and adults to practice self-harm and violence against others, like mass shootings. The same tech has enabled any pedophile with $25 to generate endless amounts of child abuse materials from freely sourced, innocent photos and videos all over the internet.
It is hollowing out our education system and robbing children and college students of their opportunity to learn and use critical thinking. You, as a former educator, should care about that. But it seems hard to find anything that you actually care about or will stand for anymore. Whatever once inspired you to run for mayor, to make your Smart Thinking podcast, to pursue a career in education - it’s all worn thin over this disastrous decision.
Speaking of that, as a podcaster, you have a pretty rich data sample out there for anyone to access. Thanks to zero regulation on generative AI, your voice is no longer your own. Consider what an easy target you may become for a deep fake campaign, provided by open AI’s Sora software. The threat to our democracy, to justice, to truth itself is already here. Gone are the days of wonky-looking hands as a reliable tell. Currently, no deep fake detector can accurately predict when an image, audio, or video is AI generated or not.
If you think that construction will be the end of this fight, you’re sorely mistaken. Each time something goes wrong, each time Vantage breaks its promises, each time the cost of energy spikes, each time the water pressure runs out, each time you fail to protect us - we will be here, doing our best to pressure you to do your job as a public servant. It’s to serve the public, in case you forgot.
Now it seems that your time is running out to reverse course. A recall campaign for your chair is underway. The iron is hot, and people will be only too grateful to have someone to vote for whose reputation is not marked by piss-poor negotiations, sketchy backroom deals, gaslighting the public, and weaponizing the cops on people who dare to oppose you.
Even so, time has not run out as long as you are in office. This challenge presents a golden opportunity for you to reverse course and mitigate the damage already done. You can admit you made a mistake. You can listen to your constituents’ call for a moratorium on data centers, terminate the TID, or at least conduct an environmental assessment.
By doing so, right now, you could earn back public trust, show that you are only human, and still care about the land and city you belong to. We all make mistakes. Don’t let your pride cost us a future without vast increases in air, water, heat, and sound pollution. Get out before the AI bubble bursts all over you. Don’t go down with the child pornography machine. Put a backbone to your values, and if you can’t, resign so someone else can.
Call to action
For everyone in the Port Washington, West Bend, Fredonia, and greater Milwaukee area who has gotten involved in this fight, or wants to:
Political repression is not a reason to stop applying pressure. It’s a sign that the pressure is effectively challenging those in power. They felt comfortable to do what they did to those women last night probably because only a couple dozen people attended the meeting. We had hundreds at previous meetings. Don’t let despair hold you back from being the person you know you can be. Don’t stop standing up for what is right when it counts. There are plenty of us out here doing this together. Even if you’ve never organized anything more than a birthday party in your life, there’s no time like the present to begin.
We can be stronger than spineless politicians. We can arm ourselves with knowledge and skills needed to make way for another world that is still possible, where AI is strictly regulated, the environment is protected, and people’s lives are put before billionaires’ profits. It’s a lot of work, sure, but it’s work worth doing. And you’ll be in good company.
To stay up to date on the campaign to stop this and other data centers going up all over Wisconsin, subscribe and follow:
Party for Socialism and Liberation
Wisconsin Fighting Oligarchy Coalition
Tracking Data Centers: Energy demand, pollution, and public impact
See you at town hall.