I fully support everyone's right to discuss mass transportation in Escambia County, and I fully support the ATU's right to hold a public "town-hall" meeting this evening at PSC to gin up support for ECAT.
I think the meeting will be well attended and the press will certainly cover it.
I don't know if this meeting was advertised--- so I'm not sure we can attend this meeting and speak, even if we wanted to.
I have heard that at least two of my peers on the BCC will be attending this meeting, and this is 100% up to them to make this decision.
For my part, I won't be coming only because we have all received legal guidance from our attorney and the attorneys we engage for labor negotiations not to attend this meeting.
Add to this the fact that we are currently in discussions with ATU to bring the drivers in-house in order to save about $1 Million dollars or so in insurance costs.
In addition to this, all 5 of the county commissioners are being sued by ATU in our official capacities as County Commissioners, and Doug Underhill is being sued in his personal capacity as well.
The basis of this litigation is the allegation that the BCC violated the free-speech right of the union.
So for these and no other reasons, I will not be in attendance tonight--as I do not see any positive outcome to be achieved by my being there, but there is a significant downside that I fully understand.
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