Yours truly has been to one-sided presentations over many years of civic involvement. The meeting sponsored by a Stark County local government (the Lawrence Township trustees - Wednesday, August 11th at 6:30 p.m. at the North Lawrence Fire Department) ranks placement right at the top of the list in terms of bias.
The worst part of the evening (about 100 attended) as far as the SCPR was concerned was the seeming interminable (propagandistic - in the view of The Report) presentation by Executive Director Rhonda Reda of the Ohio Oil & Gas Energy Education Program (OOGEEP).
She had been told by Lawrence Township Trustees Lester Kamph and Michael Stevens that she had 1-1/2 hours to present her program. And she took every second of the allotted time to provide oil and gas industry "approved" education in excruciating detail.
When The Report observed to Trustee Stevens on the "gilding of the lily" by Reda, he said: "Well, if you don't like it, you can leave." A fine attitude for a public servant, huh?
In the end (about one hour after Reda's "promo," The Report did leave. The only worthwhile things for attendees were presentations by a Harrison Countian (Jim Milleson) and a Texan (Attorney "Scott" Bauer of Braxton Acquisitions) who offered direction to those with oil and gas rights on their lands to get help negotiating with the oil and gas behemoths.
The video below contains some of Milleson's/Bauer's remarks that oil and gas mineral rights holders may find helpful.
Reda's remarks were totally worthless to the SCPR inasmuch as The Report has been to many meetings on fracking and knows the oil and gas company spiel A to Z. It was unmitigated gall on her part to slam the anti-fracking folks as being progandistic and liars.
It appears that Reda does not understand that the middle group on this issue (including the SCPR) view the oil and gas industry line on the fracking issue about as skeptically as that of the anti-frackers. So for her to land on anti-frackers is sort of like "the pot calling the kettle black."
Apparently, Trustee Michael Stevens had something to do with bringing the Texan in. As it turned out, who is one of the Texan's clients? The Clay family of Clay's Park (Yankee Peddler) fame for whom Michael Stevens worked for many years. Hmm?
Trustees had nobody at the meeting to present the other side of the issue. Some citizens did get up and ask some "embarrassing questions" of Reda. The Report understands that her educational background is in marketing and not in geology or any other aspect of science that might qualify her in a more or less objective sense to speak to the safety or non-safety of fracking.
Lawrence Township citizens should be outraged at the use of local government sanction in the service of such a one-sided event.
The Plain Township trustees (back in January, 2011) in conjunction with Ron Ponder of WHBC's Points to Ponder made a proper presentation of both sides of the fracking issue.
Perhaps Kamph and Stevens should attend a Plain Township trustee meeting in order to "educate themselves" on the proper use of the authority of local government to the benefit and welfare of ALL its citizens!
Here is a video summary of Wednesday night's presenters:
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