CC Minutes 03/24/2003 - Laserfiche WebLink

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City Commission Meeting March 24, 2003 Page 26 PRONOVOST: I think the Commission as a whole has indicated and I think it is pretty much of a mind that public meetings being it called a town hall meeting, informative meetings where some people could be addressing specific questions of the public, the experts if you will. I think we all have that interest to make sure that the public is informed and I think we do need to do a better job of keeping people informed as to where we are in this right now. DOERNER: People were not aware that there were litigation costs, people weren't aware why we incurred those litigation costs. They were left with the impression that it was all Casselberry's fault and that we needed to eat those costs and it sort of a punitive, we were being punished for bad behavior, which I found quite disturbing philosophy to even want to impose on a government entity that is very disturbing. HART: I found it interesting to their understanding of what was meant by government owned utility, I mean, they thought we were going to create a whole new department and hire our own people and basically do it on our own. This just tells how really uninformed these people are and frankly when I invited people to come to the last meeting where Florida Power was, I was disappointed that after Florida Power made their presentation, the majority of the room let~, they didn't want to hear anything else. DOERNER: But many of the people that were here I talked to and talked to you afterwards and they were they actually came because what they saw told them everything they needed to know in a different fashion and I am going to do follow up I think there were five people here and they are going to come to the OUC because I talked to them extensively about not the City operating but buying and leasing out and what potential profit margin could be received long term what that could mean for the general fund in terms of adding money back. I mean nothing was definite but it was before you even look at a referendum or anything else, wouldn't you like to know what your options are or do you want the door closed so that you just have this big question mark here and this other entity that says we are the only thing that's defined, now what do you want to do. Well obviously you are going to go for the defined entity and that's a big question mark. That's what we're tasked here to do, that's why we were elected and the citizens understand that and the more I talk to people and I talked to a ton of people and I went to some homes and I looked up phone numbers off of e-mails and I had great conversations, I was absolutely amazed at yes you send out something that's so volatile and imply something so negative people get that initial surge of angry but then once it sets in and they start having people say we'll look at this aspect, then look at this, and there is positives to Progress Energy too, so that is like a given in this whole scenario. It may not be very nice company but there's you know they do know how to deliver electricity and services. They like that but they don't like is that if they think they are sort of being bamboozled into something and that they are so stupid that they won't be able to weigh out the options.