Monday, August 18, 2008

REMINDER OF PUBLIC HEARING regarding City Utilities proposed operating plan (budget) and their proposed natural gas rate increases

Tomorrow, Tuesday, August 19, 2008, at 5:30 p.m., is the scheduled public hearing of the City Utilities proposed budget. This is the time scheduled for the public to come and address the CU board and the City Council.

There will also be a joint study session of the City Utilities board and the City Council.

The hearing and study session will be held in the CU training center classroom at 301 E. Central.

View CU's preliminary 2009 Operating Plan and Natural Gas Rate Proposal overviews at the City Utilities Web site.

- 2009 Operating Plan

- Natural Gas Proposal

The next opportunity for the public to speak to Council in a public setting will be at the first reading of the bill recommending approval of the City Utility budget, when it comes before Council. That date is September 15, 2008. Two weeks later, Council will vote to either approve or not approve the CU budget.

Following is the rest of the schedule as it appeared in the News-Leader:

- Aug. 19-27 -- Reviews/study sessions as needed with CU board and City Council.

- 3 p.m. Aug. 28 -- Board votes on proposed budget, CU board room, 301 E. Central

- Aug. 29 -- Budget filed with city clerk

- 7 p.m. Sept. 15 -- First reading and public hearing of proposed budget, Springfield City Council, Old City Hall, 830 Boonville.

- 7 p.m. Sept. 29 -- City Council votes on proposed CU budget, Old City Hall, 830 Boonville

5 comments:

tom said...

"THIS IS A FREE SPEECH ZONE The administrators of this blog are only responsible for the entries and the comments that they, personally, produce. Both anonymous and signed comments are allowed in the comment sections of each entry, at will, and administrators are not to be assumed to be in agreement or disagreement with the commentators at this blog. The administrators, therefore, take no responsibility for what other commentators write in the comment section of any given entry. Be nice. Do not use profanity and live by the golden rule: Treat others as you would like to be treated. Jackie Melton writes a regular column for the Community Free Press. Her opinions are not the opinions of the Community Free Press and this blog is in no way associated with the Community Free Press".

Are you kidding me this was really necessary ??

Jackie Melton said...

Do you have a problem with this being a free speech zone, Tom?

I thought you liked to spout off freely.

I can start telling you to shut up once in a while if it would make you feel more comfortable?

tom said...

I can't actually believe that you need to inform people that it is such. I came to the conclusion long ago that everyone has the right to speak as they might and if you don't like it either don't listen or challenge that individual in the manner of which they are spouting off.

Jackie Melton said...

There's no consensus among bloggers about allowing anonymity. It is both approved and not approved in some blogging circles. Some people believe the known administrator is responsible for everything that is published on their blog simply because that administrator allows anonymous comments to be posted in the first place.

Some administrators choose to moderate their comment section, I do not.

I felt it was necessary to post the disclosures because I fear that, unless I respond to every comment that is posted here, some people might take my silence as automatic agreement.

I do not always have the time or inclination to respond to every comment made in the comment section of this blog and certainly, Momma Twoop and PJ (anonymous posters, themselves) don't have the time to do that, so it is not always possible for me to challenge other people with whom I disagree, or comment on my agreement, if such is the case.

I also felt it was necessary to point out that this blog isn't associated with CFP in any way, since I write a regular column for CFP.

It's my opinion that it is better to state the obvious sometimes than to simply trust people to automatically understand something.

The disclosure is to warn people, as much as anything, that I allow anonymous comments and I am not responsible for them. By disclosing that fact on the face of the blog, readers can make a personal choice about whether they want to read the comment section here or not.

I want anonymous commentators to feel free to post here and because I want anonymous commentators to feel free to post here I felt a disclosure was appropriate, just to make sure others understand my position.

Tom, my advice to you is, if you don't like the disclosures, follow your own advice, don't choose to read them.

FYI, a comment left at "Life of Jason," www.lifeofjason.com, by the brave "Chris" (whoever that is) referring to this blog and its administrator (but, ironically, not mentioning the blog or administrator by name):

"I saw the cowards attacking you on another site without the balls to name who they are. It’s a shame that blog sites allow this kind of thing when they know it’s going to end up with that kind of childish behavior. It says a lot about the kind of person running the site if they don’t want people to be accountable for what they say."

So, you see, Tom, not everyone understands what, to you and I, may seem obvious, just as it wasn't obvious to you why I felt the need to post the disclosures in the first place. :)

Anonymous said...

No one should have to "make up
anything" about CU or our fine City.

The truth of what they do on a day to day basis is more than bad enough.

This would probably prevent anyone attacking anybody.