In Thursday’s Tallahassee Democrat, Kim Williams (on the other side of the coal debate from Commissioner Katz) also authored a MY VIEW on lessons learned and the path ahead.

Mr. Williams reflected on his concern that tough fights like this tend to get unproductively personal and can degenerate into conspiratorial thinking, Ã¥ la “the grassy knoll.” Mr. Williams’ take-home messages:

1. First, we still face an uncertain energy future. All of the “alternative energy” sources discussed to date simply will not meet our community’s growing energy needs. There is no simple answer, no magic potion or easy fix.

2. Second, we have to choose something, and we need to do it soon.

3. Third, we need to come together as a leadership community and solve this problem now. Understandably this issue can be an emotional and divisive one. But if we are to find a livable solution we must set aside our suspicions and our accusations and work to enlighten – not enrage – those who disagree with us.

Again, ignoring (for now) the “coal” part of our “coal postmortem,” heading straight toward process lessons learned, put into a Village-Square-ish context. . .

On “enlighten, not enrage those who disagree with us”: We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

While “. . . we need to do it soon” at first sounds contradictory to Commissioner Katz’s “slow down enough to make an informed decision” let’s go out on a limb and say that they’re each touching on aspects of good decision making. We have to take special care with facts, accurately understanding what’s in front of us. But we also have to take a look at what is around us. . . We have to care about context. Context can present real limitations on the time we have to solve a problem.

Maybe you won’t be surprised that it looks like we have more cornerstones for our Village Square:

1. Context matters.

2. Get (un)personal.

To recap all four:

1. Facts matter.

2. Context matters.

3. Get (un)personal.

4. Think twice, act once.

Stay tuned for more yammering on all of the above (and more).