Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Disappointed

I attended the City Commission work session last night and was disappointed. I thought, perhaps erroneously on my part, that the SME portion of the meeting was going to be more about the city's continued involvement in this fiasco.

Mr. Gregori did an excellent job of making sure the "discussion" didn't stray into that territory. Commissioner Beecher helped by asking questions I didn't think were all that relevant. Gregori's explanations were long and tedious, which he apologized for, and as GeeGuy indicated, he strayed into pricing issues, which I can't begin to explain to you.

Mr. Doyon wanted to get some information from Gregori so the City Commissioners could have something to think about and "mull over". With only about 30 minutes left before the City Commission meeting began, he asked Gregori what would be the benefit to the city and the cost. According to my notes, Gregori indicated that if the city wants to maintain its equity in the plant, it will have to continue to invest, but the cost is not known.

Will the majority of commissioners look at this ambiguous statement as a concern? On their own, probably not. Hopefully, Mr. Doyon will keep the pressure on them.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Also, there was no opportunity given the public to rebut or question Mr. Gregori's sales pitch. This in direct contradiction to recent staff public statements that the public gets to participate at these work sessions. More verbal rehetoric which has proven to be untrue with our present local government.....

Anonymous said...

The limits on participation only apply to the little people. They will continue to deprive the citizens' right to speak leading to a not to distant point in time where no one will show up for commission meetings.

Anonymous said...

It is my understanding that the work sessions are informational for the Commission. As long as I have attended them (5+ years), there has been no participation from the public.

Anonymous said...

Well Anon number three, to get better informed as to what upper city staff has publicly stated go to:

http://homepage.mac.com/neiltaylor1/cce/page74/page74.html

Anonymous said...

If the above link is not complete because of copy/paste issues, just go to CCE's website at: www.cce-mt.org and click on menu item "Public Input Answered".

The movie snippet says it all or is Coleen Balzarini pulling on the public's leg?

Anonymous said...

Either the City Commissioners, including the Mayor, are so stupid they have no place holding a public office, or they are involved in something that is illegal and self-serving. I continue to feel that skimming is involved in this convoluted con game.

Mr.Gregori resembles a traveling snake-oil pitchman and the City blindly, or in concert, supports him.

The coal plant is an antiquated, dirty, in all senses of the word, idea. The City representatives, with the exception of Jolley, are enveloped with a miasma of back-room cronyism and have jeopardized the financial stability of GF.

If this is representative government in GF, I would ask who are they representing? Let the representatives pay for their choices from their own pockets. Between all the individuals involved in this scam they can come up with the 2 million to repay the citizens for their private-deal decision.

Anonymous said...

I hope they are not representing a bunch of anonymous knucleheads.