Advanced citizenship

By most any measure last week’s public hearing on the development order for the Northwest Florida Renewable Energy Center was an exercise in what democracy should be.

Even if the vote did not go the way opponents desired that does not undermine the lessons the public hearing could offer other governing bodies in the county.

As was said late in the meeting, no doubt some would go away unhappy, some happy, but all who wished had been heard.

More than two dozen people signed up to speak before Port St. Joe city commissioners and were given their time, none of them hearing a buzzer at three, five or seven minutes to alert them they had gone overtime, none of them shut off from making their points.

The lone request from Mayor Mel Magidson was to try to be brief and non-redundant and while many speakers could not adhere to either request, all were allowed their full say.

That the hearing, held solely to consider this development order, was held in the Centennial Building to accommodate the crowd and lasted almost four hours is also testament to government providing a forum for citizen input.

Advanced citizenship, though, depends on informed citizens and on several points reasoned debate was drowned.

The contention that somehow this project snuck up on citizens is a non-starter. This project has been around since 2009.

The county, city and Florida Department of Environmental Protection held two public workshops in 2009 – the DEP participating specifically due to the controversy a similar project attracted in Tallahassee.

There were two town hall style meetings held by opponents this year.

Reporting on this project has been extensive for two years, whether you, as one audience member said, one takes this newspaper or not.

This was no stealth initiative, but one of the most significant stories, on many levels, in Gulf County the past two years.

Secondly, there were statements made that were ill-informed or disingenuous.

A Tallahassee resident stated the project was up for a loan guarantee. That is wrong. Months ago the U.S. Department of Energy put a term sheet for a federal loan guarantee on hold due to lack of funds. The country’s economic environment has only worsened.

By all accounts, there is no loan guarantee. The company is lining up private financing.

Important to remember; this was one of the most forcefully stated arguments from opponents of this project in the town hall meetings this year. But even with federal money no longer in the equation, the argument lives on.

More disingenuous was the statement by the same Tallahassee resident that a challenge to the air emissions permit was filed and simply not heard, contrary to Florida law.

The challenge was in fact withdrawn by those who filed it and was done so the week before a hearing was set for Port St. Joe, the precise sort of hearing on the merits of the project’s permitting that many opponents now seek from the city and county.

Such a hearing was scheduled, before an administrative judge. Folks wanting to point fingers about the alleged lack of a public forum to consider the technical merits of this project can point at this withdrawal of the challenge by opponents.

And for the contention that opponents had insufficient preparation time for any challenge hearing, the attorney spearheading the case has been working against the project for two years – 30 days was insufficient to mount a hearing on the merits of the opposition’s position?

Finally, Commissioner Bo Patterson was insensitive in trying to identify Port St. Joe natives in attendance and how long they had lived here, but the larger point was on target.

The crowd that came out last week was roughly 200, with a number of those in favor of the project.

To argue that opponents were in the majority at last week’s hearing and therefore should sway commissioners’ votes is a stretch. Maybe opponents were a majority of those attending the meeting, but given the crowd’s size and divided viewpoints it seems hard to create a mandate out of the meeting, as was asserted last week.

It is these highly-disputable statements, without supporting facts, that undermine the reasoned arguments of residents such as Trish Petrie and Jon Hooper, who have followed this project for two years while voicing concerns, poring over permit materials and asking pointed and appropriate questions.

 In the end, city commissioners had little choice. As County Commissioner Bill Williams told one opponent months ago, what was being asked of local officials was to overrule the decisions of those state and federal agencies charged with making those decisions.

And, in large measure, many anti-project arguments voiced last week were with those agencies – another reason the withdrawal of the challenge was in the long run a disservice to those who feel a full public vetting of the project has not been made.

But the bottom line is this project jumped through all the hurdles and was deemed worthy of moving ahead.

Certainly, as it moves forward elected officials and residents must maintain vigilance, about pledges by the project developer regarding safeguarding the environment and pledges that the community has a new economic development partner instead of a future white elephant that soils a postcard paradise.

Time will tell.

But the advanced citizenship – democracy is designed to make one work – on display last week provides a dose of hope.