The process that resulted in the approval of the $40 million smart meter program avoided “contact” with the citizens of Tallahassee at a number of critical junctures along the path to approval.
A public data request by Tallahassee Reports has verified the following:
- The smart meter committee, organized in 2005 to evaluate the potential use of smart meters, was staffed with only city officials.
- The City Commission voted to move forward with the program on March 28, 2007.
- There were no press releases issued regarding the smart mart meter program until after April 9, 2008.
- There were no utility bill inserts addressing smart meters before April 1, 2008.
- There were no special public forums held to receive public input or to disseminate information about the $40 million program.
- A search of the Tallahassee Democrat indicates that the first reference to smart meters in that newspaper was after the approval of the program by the City Commission.
Facts Indicate Smart Meter Approval Process Avoided Public "Contact" added by Staff on
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Frankly, I elect public officials because I don’t want to be bothered with having to meet and make comment on every single decision made. If you don’t like what the Mayor and the city commission are doing, then vote them out. This weak indignation about lack of public input for every decision that they make is not reporting, it is politics.
Then again, I heard about this site on Faux News, so I’m not suprised.
I am in awe that the city commission rammed the smart meters down the citizens of Tallahassee’s throat without any prior knowledge or being required to hold a series of PUBLIC MEETINGs!I think there should be a federal investigation and the Mayor’s Bank accounts and relationship with Honeywell should be legally reviewed!
What happened to all the old meters? Is there not a municipality somewhere that would buy them and help offset the $40M. Time for Ebay.
Answer me this… why, in August (last time the city renegotiated its natural gas rate) was it set at $10 – the going rate per unit…
http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/NG/W
But, now, we are all supposed to be happy that the city is only paying between $7 and $8 per unit… when the link above shows the going rate is closer to $4 per unit…
Seems like the city’s utility customers are being given the big shaft and being told to be happy about it…
Practical marketing – I don’t see slant… I see someone who reported that the process was not open to citizens input…
Amazing how a public data request, which is answered very specifically, can tell how everyone in the City was trying to hide how the City would start to move into the 21st century.
There are many electric power industry publications that have been saying how this is the wave of the future. How else can you have a “smart grid” if you don’t start at the bottom and build the foundation? Isn’t President O’bama selling the Smart Grid as one of his ways to stimulate the economy?
I thought Tallahassee Reports was going to report facts, and not present opinions. You were going to leave that up to the reader. Nice slant you have going.
This shows use just how much Mayor John Marks & his staff care about our input on programs that directly affect us. Is it possible to impeach the whole city commission & start over?
They know what’s best for us, don’t they.