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Monday, April 1, 2013

Raleigh Meeting First Response... WidenI77.org Gathers Wednesday

The last post seems to have created quite a stir.  However, until this evening, no other attendees have commented.  (For the record, two WidenI77 attendees were contacted for the original post.)  Here's a comment from Davidson Commissioner Rodney Graham on how the meeting occurred.

From Commissioner Graham...

Rick, as you mentioned I was at the meeting. It was in no way an ambush as it has been characterized. Kurt Naas and the other 3 people with him were allowed to ask several questions. In fact, I asked one question and was told by Speaker Tillis that this meeting was for the purpose of allowing the Widen I-77 group to ask questions, so my question was not answered.

Speaker Tillis did invite one consultant (from KPMG) as well as two staff members and two people from NCDOT to the meeting. As he admitted, highway funding is very complicated and he wanted to make sure that he had people at the meeting who could answer questions. They did so. I felt this was a much more effective meeting than had Kurt, et. al. met privately with Speaker Tillis.

Yes, it was 'Town Hall Day' and since we were there, we went. It was a good meeting for elected officials as well.

That's certainly a different take on what happened last week, and I'm certainly glad to present the other point of view on what occurred.

However, that doesn't quite explain all of the other roughly thirty or so people who attended beyond those mentioned by commissioner Graham - including business interests, chambers of commerce and even media.  It also doesn't explain, as DavidsonNews.net pointed out, why all local media in the affected HOT lane area did not know about the meeting.

And while I can appreciate that elected officials have had multiple opportunities to learn about HOT lanes at public meetings and while I am glad they attend, I believe they also did have a closed meeting back in February where they heard from consultants on the subject.

One would think citizens could expect the same thing when meeting with their representatives.

But enough about closed meetings, who said what to whom, and which media was invited....

The WidenI77.org group is having another PUBLIC meeting this Wednesday, 7pm at Cornelius Town Hall.

3 comments:

  1. Thanks, Rick, for keeping us informed.

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  2. Rick- here is my comment on your original post:


    I disagree with Commissioner Graham's interpretation. After trying to get an appointment for weeks, Tillis' office told us to bring just a few people. We did not want, need, or expect a public gathering. What we wanted to do was share the results of our research and propose to the Speaker a number of ways to support GP lanes that would be politically palatable, and then hear what he had to say. What we got was political grandstanding.

    What we walked into was absolutely an ambush. If the Speaker had "a firm grasp of the political and financial realities" as hand-picked media dutifully reported, why did he need to insulate himself with 40+ supporters? In fifty minutes I asked two questions and then had to sit and listen while the consultants and NCDOT types questioned our credibility. Tillis shut me down when I tried to respond. There was no give and take, no exchange of ideas.

    After I took a day off work, rode three hours and hobbled into the meeting on a reconstructed knee, the Speaker did not have the courtesy to introduce himself personally.

    Please plan on attending our debrief session this Weds Apr 3 7pm at Cornelius Town Hall. It promises to be interesting.

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  3. Commissioner Graham -- I suspect that you and others did not understand that you were attending a meeting that was only intended to be a private meeting with Speaker Tillis. You and other officials probably don't realize that you were "used" as part of the ambush. You thought you were essentially attending another briefing on the toll lanes, not that you were stepping into what had been scheduled by me with Speaker Tillis as a private meeting that he had promised the citizen's group WidenI77.org since January.

    Come to Wednesday night's meeting at 7:00 p.m. at Cornelius Town Hall and you will find out details that we had hoped to share with our representative, Speaker Tillis. We were not able to share this information given the format of last week's meeting with him.

    I want to make sure that the truth about why it was an ambush is not misunderstood by those who attended the meeting and did not understand its original intent. You were misled and so were we. It would be like if I agreed to meet with you at my office after you had requested a meeting with me so that you could share ideas with me personally about a project you are working on for Davidson; however, when you show up at my office, an assistant guides you to walk a couple of blocks with me to another location. You step into a room with 40 plus people plus a bridge line with two hand-picked reporters. I smile and say, "well I'm hear to answer your questions" -- and I've invited a group of people to join me and to answer your questions (oh -- and a couple of reporters to hear our conversation). The citizens (four of us) who went to meet with Speaker Tillis didn't have questions -- those have already been answered. We have solutions that we wanted to share. Speaker Tillis knew we didn't drive nearly three hours to ask him questions -- we've had plenty of those briefings in our own backyard. It was confirmed that we were going there to discuss with him ideas for how we could avoid the toll trap.

    Commissioner Graham, I can see from your perspective why you did not view it as an ambush because you were not privy to the intent of the meeting between a few of us and Speaker Tillis. I was concerned you and others at the meeting did not realize that you were props for the ambush. Now my concerns have been validated.

    Respectfully,
    Vallee Bubak

    ReplyDelete