Coal postmortem Part A: “Marrying in haste and repenting at leisure”
Tallahassee City Commissioner and Village Square co-chair Allan Katz had a MY VIEW last week in the Tallahassee Democrat, looking at lessons we might learn from the coal debate:
Now that the city of Tallahassee’s expensive flirtation with coal-plant ownership has been ended for us, it’s worth spending a little time reflecting on the lessons we should learn from the experience.
The city came dangerously close to living out the adage about marrying in haste and repenting at leisure. Our citizens, as the people who would have paid the price of repentance, have every right to demand better next time.
Setting aside Commissioner Katz’s comments on the content of the coal debate (to likely revive them when we talk “turkey” on this year’s Dinner at the Square topic: America’s Energy Future), there are Village Square lessons lurking in the points he makes on the process of the coal debate. While there is substantial disagreement even among our twelve member Village Square board of directors on coal, we’d likely find fairly round agreement on guidelines for making good decisions. That makes Commissioner Katz’s points on process lessons worth a linger:
. . . seek the facts. Don’t cook the facts. Don’t hide the inconvenient facts. Seek objective information, present it evenhandedly, completely and transparently, and trust the people to be smart enough to make an informed judgment without trying to sell them with a PR campaign.
. . .slow down enough to make an informed decision.
Here, Commissioner Katz has hit on two of a handful of founding concepts of the Village Square.
On facts: Good facts tend to produce good results and, well, vice-versa. While facts tend to be a little dull to wade through and don’t make for the sexiest advertising campaigns, even those on the “win” side of a PR-driven campaign tend to have to “pay later” if their position wasn’t originally grounded in an accurate assessment of fact.
On the point about slowing down: I’m reminded of the wise handyman adage “Measure twice, cut once.”
So, ta dah, our tickler for you on two cornerstones of our new Village Square:
1. Facts matter.
2. Think twice, act once.
Add comment July 16th, 2007
