Yesterday's City Commission Work Session - the one at 1 p.m.

I got there a little before 1 p.m. yesterday (with a bag of lychees to snack on during the meeting - inset) and, if you haven't been in the City Hall conference room later, the next time you go you'll notice some changes. The "football field" size table that took up most of the middle of the room is gone. Now there is a smaller conference table at the east end of the room - set up parallel to Dixie Hwy. There are rows of chairs for seating. As people kept entering the room, it was apparent there was going to be a large crowd and there was a push to move the meeting to the Commission Chambers - which was unoccupied throughout the afternoon.

The Chambers also has the capability for Internet streaming of the goings-on. Why in 2009 we can't seem to make meetings in the Conference room have the same capability is beyond me. But, that just says that it's not a priority to keep the public informed of what is going on in their local government - the Conference room provides a special place to hide if you don't want wide and immediate distribution of what is transpiring during a public meeting. The move to the other room was vetoed by those on the Commission. The Mayor's face expressed amazement that so many people would want to come and listen to this meeting - one that was about our Reverse Osmosis plant, the Casino building, the budget and City Attorney recruitment. He also made it clear that no decisions would be made at the meeting, it was just called so that the Commission could talk to each other about the items on the agenda and that there would be no public comment.

Moral of the story: Schedule meetings like these in the evenings when people have a better opportunity to attend, use the Commission Chambers if the group exceeds a certain size (at one point there were 28 people in the audience plus the 8 or 9 around the conference table) and wire the Conference room for Internet streaming.

Now, along these lines, I really wish more people had the opportunity to hear and see Dr. Steven Daranceau, P.E. give his PowerPoint presentation on Reverse Osmosis, it's history and evolution, national and state trends, budding technologies and concentrate disposal options. This is the sort of thing that would be ideal to video and have archived for retrieval by anyone at a later date. You see, part of leadership is the ability to educate so that others can learn. We need to have this capability in Lake Worth and soon.

Some of the more interesting points in the presentation were these. WORK IN PROGRESS