I start this morning with a three pack from the Sea Coast Echo:
Fillingame wants loan to cover Bay’s bills ~ Cassandra Favre
“I’m still not certain that we are okay on collecting people’s waste water and garbage fees and using them for something else,” Ward Five Councilman Joey Boudin said. “We go out and borrow money after we collect their money.”
Now for the “dangerous people of the internet” link:
Bay Council eyes delinquent accounts ~ Cassandra Favre
Lana Noonan of the Hancock County Alliance for Good Government should take a well deserved victory lap:
A majority of the bills are more than four months behind.
“One prompt for me to look into this,” Noonan said, “was that the council just voted for a utility increase.
“If they’re not paying now, how are they going to pay when the rates increase?”
Noonan said the delinquent amounts add up to $265,955 and the utility list was posted online on Sept. 26.
Slabbed was not credited in the story and I’m fine with that. To the extent a couple of the City council members got phone calls after Slabbed published the City’s Utility Aging well tells the tale here. The days of the Sea Coast Echo being the gatekeeper of public information for all things Hancock County are over and that happened years ago with the ascent of this critter called the internet. People are hungry for good information. To the extent what I do here at Slabbed New Media forces the other “dangerous people of the internet” to bring their A games to local journalism is a good thing for the public IMHO. It shows in Cassandra Favre’s story.
There should be a lesson here for Mayor Fillingame and the Bay City Council and I absolutely think at least one member of the City Council gets it in spades. I was not at the last City Council meeting but from what I was told it is also clear there are a few that are woefully misinformed when it comes to this internet thingy and that despite the fact at least one of the councilmen has his own internet website affiliation. Continue reading “Sunday Links: The dangerous people of the internet strike again!”