At the Ellwood City Borough council agenda meeting on Aug. 8, Rob Brough, representing the citizen group “Standing Up to Ellwood Electric,” which has almost 1,200 members, read a letter requesting an informal meeting of citizens and council members to discuss the Ellwood City Electric Department.
At the conclusion of the meeting, council president Connie MacDonald met with Brough to set the date, time and place. Because such a meeting would have less than four council members present (the minimum number required to pass legislation), the meeting doesn’t have to open to the public and press.
The letter is included below:
“To Ellwood City Borough Council:
Dear Borough Council. We would like to request an informal meeting to discuss possible changes to the current state of our Electric Company. We believe that an open exchange of ideas is best carried out in a small group setting allowing for a more productive discourse that is not hampered by the formalities of an established council meeting.
We are hoping that a focused discussion dealing with the issues at hand will be productive and beneficial to all of us living in Ellwood City.
As I am sure you have noticed, there are many different views on how the current issue should be rectified. Solutions run from fixing the hours of operation of the front window to disbanding the entire company and starting from scratch. Of course there are a plethora of ideas in between those two area. Our hope is to be able to wade through the ideas and narrow them down to options that are realistic and workable.
We were asked to draft a list of those items we would like to discuss with council. At this time we feel as though that is not a workable option without allowing council to also play a part in the drafting of concerns. Many of you have stated that there are issues both seen and unseen that play a part in the overall situation that the borough finds itself mired in at this time. It would be mutually beneficial if we sit down and explore all of these areas of concern and rule out those that would just hinder all of our efforts.
So, what I am requesting at this time for our first meeting is a fact finding and sharing venture. This will allow all interested parties to meet and engage in the open flow of ideas and dialog. Hopefully from this initial meeting we will be able to develop a framework that will permit us to come at the issues from a structured and productive stance during our future meetings.
Thank you all for your time and consideration of this important community effort.
Sincerely,
Rob Brough
Dave Gulish
Brian Bush
Lisa Guerrera”
I’m sure they would be tickled pink to sit down and discuss their equation to milk a town like a cash cow.