LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. — In a pointed defense of his integrity amid ongoing public scrutiny of data center development in Loudoun County, Sterling District Supervisor Koran T. Saines (D) told fellow Board of Supervisors members and residents on April 7, 2026, that he has not accepted any campaign contributions from data center companies. Yet Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP) records reveal that Saines has received a combined $15,000 from a prominent local construction executive and a building industry association whose members routinely perform site development, underground utilities, and infrastructure work for the very data centers that dominate Loudoun’s economy.
The comments came during the Board of Supervisors’ regular business meeting, where Algonkian District Supervisor Juli E. Briskman (D) presented an initiative directing county staff to study potential data center impacts on the former George Washington University Virginia Science & Technology Campus. Amazon Data Services recently purchased the 120-acre site for $427 million, raising concerns that the property — subject to older zoning rules — could see “by-right” data center development without full Board approval. Public comments and earlier remarks at the meeting apparently included allegations that supervisors were influenced by payments or favors from data center interests.
Saines responded directly and at length, reading from prepared remarks that emphasized transparency and mandatory disclosures:
“But the comments that were heard earlier regarding, I guess, alleging to say that we are taking a payment or something to that effect is… Definitely not accurate. Even go as far as to say it’s not warranted. What you heard literally all of us make mandatory disclosures. What that is, is us telling you that we are meeting with folks that are doing business in the county that literally have applications that will come in front of us here in the body. They will sit in these seats and present their application and why we should either vote yes or no for those applications. And then the public, just like you’ve done today, have the option to sign up and speak on those applications and tell us why you support an application, why you do not support an application. You can email us to us. So everything that we’re doing is in front of the public. There’s a lovely website called VPAP, V-P-A-P dot com. that you can literally go look up our campaigns and see where we’re getting donations from. We literally have to chart every single dollar that’s sent to us on our campaigns, and it’ll tell you who is sending us funding. So we are hiding nothing. I’ll speak for myself. I’m not taking a dollar from any data center companies. And I’m pretty sure a majority of my colleagues here as well have done the same. I’m not taking a dollar from any of them. So for folks to say this is hurtful. It’s not accurate. If you have questions about it, please call us or email. I’ll be glad to talk to you further about it.”
Saines’ full statement underscored the open nature of Board deliberations, the public comment process, and the availability of campaign finance data on VPAP.org. He explicitly invited residents to review his donors and offered to discuss concerns personally.
However, a review of Saines’ VPAP profile for the committee “Saines for Loudoun County Supervisor – Koran” shows two notable contributions that connect directly to the construction sector that supports Loudoun’s booming data center industry.
First, Danny Raynes, CEO and founder of Benchmark Utility Services LLC, contributed a total of $10,000 across three donations: $5,000 and $2,500 on June 3, 2019, and another $2,500 on March 31, 2023. VPAP lists the donor ID as 340110 and identifies Raynes’ company as operating in the “General Contractors” industry. Benchmark Utility Services, headquartered at 21545 Ridgetop Circle in Sterling, describes itself as “the premier design-build, site and underground utility construction firm” with a heavy focus on land clearing, excavation, grading, erosion control, and wet/dry utility installation. The company’s own LinkedIn activity and website explicitly recruit for “mission-critical underground wet/dry utility design-build projects for data center infrastructure” in Sterling, Fredericksburg, and Richmond. Benchmark has completed over 500 projects in eight-plus years and positions itself as a total site developer serving commercial clients — a category that prominently includes the massive data center campuses that have transformed eastern Loudoun into “Data Center Alley,” the world’s largest concentration of such facilities.
In April 2022, Raynes himself appeared before the Loudoun Board of Supervisors and voiced strong support for data centers, explaining how his business directly benefits from and participates in their construction.
Second, Saines accepted $5,000 from the Northern Virginia Building Industry Association (NVBIA, sometimes listed as Nova Building Industry Assn on VPAP). The NVBIA is the primary trade group representing builders, developers, and related professionals in Northern Virginia. It advocates at local, state, and federal levels for policies that facilitate construction and land development — including the infrastructure expansions, zoning changes, and utility projects that enable data center growth. Loudoun’s data centers have generated hundreds of millions in annual tax revenue for the county, funding everything from schools to roads, but they have also sparked fierce debates over noise, power demands, traffic, and quality-of-life impacts.
Taken together, these $15,000 in contributions represent a meaningful portion of Saines’ fundraising. His top donors also include the Democratic Party of Virginia ($18,691), individual supporters, and other PACs, but the Raynes and NVBIA gifts stand out because they come from entities whose core business is building the physical infrastructure that data centers require. Benchmark Utility Services does not own or operate data centers; it constructs the sites and underground utilities that make them possible. NVBIA does not build data centers itself but lobbies aggressively for the development climate that sustains them.
Saines, a Sterling native and Broad Run High School graduate with a bachelor’s degree in Human Resource Management from the Indiana Institute of Technology, was first elected in 2015 as one of the first two African American members of the Loudoun Board of Supervisors. He was reelected in 2019 and served as Board Vice Chair from 2020 to 2023. His professional background is in talent acquisition and human resources. He has focused on issues including social and racial equity, economic opportunity, and local governance transparency. In data center votes over the years, Saines has taken nuanced positions — supporting some applications with strong proffers while joining colleagues to reject or modify others that posed excessive risks to neighborhoods, the electric grid, or environmental resources.
Loudoun County remains the epicenter of the global data center industry, home to roughly 200 operating facilities and another 117 in the pipeline. In fiscal year 2025, data centers were projected to generate approximately $895 million in real and personal property tax revenue — nearly equaling the county’s entire operating budget. This revenue has allowed Loudoun to maintain one of the lowest real property tax rates in Northern Virginia. Yet residents in districts like Sterling, Ashburn, and Algonkian have grown increasingly vocal about downsides: constant construction noise, 24/7 cooling fans exceeding local decibel limits, massive new transmission lines, and strain on the regional power grid. Recent Board actions, including the March 2025 approval of Data Center Standards and Locations Phase 1 (which reclassifies data centers as conditional uses in many zones and requires special exceptions), reflect a shift toward tighter regulation.
During the April 7 meeting, the Board considered Briskman’s request for a staff report on energy grid requirements and other impacts should Amazon pursue data centers on the GWU site. The discussion highlighted the tension between economic benefits and community concerns — the very backdrop against which Saines made his remarks about campaign finance.
Saines’ invocation of VPAP was accurate and aligns with Virginia’s strong campaign finance disclosure laws. Every dollar must be reported, and the public can indeed see the names, dates, and amounts. He correctly noted that supervisors routinely disclose meetings with applicants who have business before the Board. Virginia ethics rules prohibit certain conflicts but do not ban contributions from industries that appear before local governments, provided disclosures are made.
Critics, however, argue that the distinction Saines drew — “data center companies” versus “construction companies that do business with data centers” — is a narrow one in a county where data centers are the single largest driver of commercial construction. Benchmark Utility Services’ own marketing and hiring announcements make clear that data center projects are a core part of its portfolio. Raynes’ 2022 public comments before the Board further illustrate the symbiotic relationship.
As Loudoun continues to grapple with the legacy of more than 15 years of rapid data center expansion, questions of influence, transparency, and public trust remain front and center. Supervisor Saines has invited residents to contact him directly with questions and has pointed to VPAP as the definitive record. That record shows no direct checks from Equinix, Digital Realty, Amazon Web Services, or other data center operators. It does show substantial support from a general contractor and a building industry group whose livelihoods are inextricably linked to the data center boom.
Whether these donations constitute “taking money from data center builders” is ultimately a matter of interpretation. What is not in dispute is the factual record on VPAP, the explicit business focus of Benchmark Utility Services, and the broader context of Loudoun’s data-driven economy. As the Board moves forward with updated zoning standards, power line reviews, and site-specific studies like the one requested on April 7, residents and watchdogs will continue to scrutinize not only votes but also the funding sources that help elect the officials who cast them.
Saines’ office did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment beyond his public April 7 statement. Benchmark Utility Services and the NVBIA were also contacted for this article but had not responded by press time.
This story will be updated as more details from the April 7 meeting minutes or additional campaign filings become available. For the complete donor lists and filings, visit VPAP.org and search for “Saines for Loudoun County Supervisor – Koran.” Loudoun County Board meetings are streamed live and archived at loudoun.gov/meetings.
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