The Commission’s Last Act
Well, the voices of a dozen people (including mayor-elect Michael Winters and commissioner-elect Fred Burow and a few others who usually do not speak at commission meetings) were not enough to get the City Commission to table the 11th-hour reappointments to the ECP Board. Pretty amazing turnout for an issue that was not discussed until 9:40 p.m., after all the local media had left the commission chambers.
On a 4-1 vote, Jolley dissenting, the commission reappointed two Directors to six-year terms, even though they’ve deferred all other matters concerning ECP to the next year. The commission made the reappointments with virtually no discussion, and without acknowledging community opposition: par for the course, you might say. Zero people spoke in favor of the reappointments. Pretty sad last act of office.
In the public-comment period, after the reappointment vote, Mayor-elect Winters got up again and said this: “The only thing the commission has done by reappointing these seats is to give the public the impression that nothing has changed, that it’s business as usual. Well, I am here to say that it will not be business as usual under my watch.”
I hope and trust that will be the case regarding ECP; it is just a travesty that even after the latest city election, we’ve got a 5-0 Board which has shown zero enervation over the fact that City taxpayers have been stuck consistently with expenses related to a power utility that benefits an infinitessimally small percentage of City residents.
Way to go college drop out, a classless act to the end.
Bravo to our newly elected Mayor for putting everyone on notice that “it will not be business as usual under my watch”.
Well said Travis, spot on!
The ECP board has no credibility or moral authority and on ‘auto-pilot’ with
Ms. Balzarini leading the way, not the chair.
Just more power for the course when Bronson’s term expires to elect him out of office.
Ms. Balzarini, is just doing her job. I do not believe that she enjoys getting beat up each meeting for doing a job her boss’s from the city told her to do. Just because people do not come and ramble about the same things at every meeting, does not mean that they agree with you. Its always the same group of people complaining at every meeting.
Balzarini is part of the problem. Another person at city hall who thinks just because they can walk and chew gum at the same time, that makes them a nuclear physicist. Or in her case, an expert on running a power plant. In case you missed it, running girl, the city has lost it’s ass on this city-run electricity plant fiasco.
Running girl, it often takes repetition and persistence to inspire ‘enlightenment’ and it’s fair to comment she is ‘just doing her job’ but there is a point where the
deception must stop and no more ‘business as usual’. Lawton jeopardized her
and let’s not blame citizens, but a commission that neglected to exercise oversight
and direct her. Let her focus on fiscal issues on which she is fully capable of, not
all the other tasks that are failing.
I agree with you to a point, Running girl. The problem, though, is that the Commission is making their decisions on less than all of the available information. Ms. Balzarini is partly to blame for that fact.
Just what information is it, that all of you think Ms. Balzarini is hiding. And why would she hide anything from you. You all act like she personally trying to hide information from you. Why? Also, why I’m at it. The commissioners are voted in to listen to all of us in Great Falls. Not just their friends, Not just what they them selves believe in. They are voted in to listen to all of us, and tomake the best decisions that the majority of Great Falls wants. My hope, is that, the new commission will work together, to do what is best for all of us. Including, all of you that think the rest of us are dumb.