Thursday, March 4, 2010

Hess Officials face LNG opposition


Some of Bristol's Town Council meeting last night was recorded and is on WRNI PBS radio this morning reported by Flo Jonic. Bristol Town Hall was packed - so much so that police had to turn people away due to fire code restrictions. As always, Full Channel TV televised the meeting. To my knowledge, this is the first time throughout the LNG debate that we have seen the actual faces of the Hess/LNG Corporation. Thanks to Ken Marshall and others for initiating this meeting. It was not initiated by Hess as they have noted in several letters to the editor. Our Bristol Town Council did a fabulous job of interacting with corporate Hess vice presidents, Leon Bowdoin and Gregg Landes in a direct, cohesive and respectful manner. The Town Council also had done their homework and were very impressive in their line of questioning. Each and every one of them! They were also able to keep the crowded, energetic audience under control. No easy feat. We are especially grateful to yachtsman, naval engineer/architect Halsey Herreshoff for his esteemed questioning and knowledge of large ships ('roll/pitch/wave action'), the waters of Narragansett Bay and other ports such as Valencia, Spain and Boston Harbor. As someone told me last night "It's good to be on the same side as Halsey!" I would agree! I was totally honored to be a citizen of Bristol last night. There will be another meeting with Hess at the Mount Hope High School in Bristol on Chestnut Street in weeks to come where questions will be taken from the public. In the meantime, Hess has agreed to meet with Halsey (and perhaps others?) to try to resolve some of the more difficult questions. "You should tell your bosses there's going to be constant resistance and no change in the fact that we oppose this and you should just back off and go somewhere else," Herreshoff said. The link to WRNI is below. http://www.wrni.org/content/hess-officials-face-lng-opposition-bristol-town-meeting

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