... Now I've also maintained CB Daniel as chairman of the elected official task force and left everybody In place, If that's all right with YOU. And told him that their role is to deal with these people In a private communication mode. We don't expect them to ever show up at public meetings, we don't want their names on letters to the editor, or any of that kind Of Stuff. They're gonna be the guys who are there privately on the telephone, and In the peoples' office Just trying to keep that level of communication going.

SD: How do we feed them Information? Or do we?

JS: They're under Marilyn's division and we Just gonna have to make sure we enhance that. They give reports back to us through you, and you give them areas that we're concerned with and they go out and try and sense out and form opinions of the elected officials that they have a they have a one-to-one relationship with. There's two members of that committee assigned to each elected official. OK. SD: Who are on that? Do you know? MH: Gosh, I don't know. I've never gone to a meeting, I just know CB Daniel.

MT: They're meeting next week but we're gonna be at that legislative workshop. So, I was planning to go to it unless there was a conflict.

JS: Call CB. He knows it's under your division. He's asked for direction. I'm giving him direction.

SD: It'd be nice to know, In case you run into one of them sometime. JS: What else is in your division that we need to work on?

MT: Well, the same thing I think is happening in the political arena that has happened In the economic development arena. That is to say, In the vacuum of no business leadership various groups have formed. One of them the one at Howard Johnson's and one of them, is apparently Howard Hodor's arrangement, which is, I don't know if you... They took names and addresses and they're gonna start a mailing list and an alert system, and all these things. There may be others that I just may not have tapped into, and I think we need to....

JS: Make sure we're networking with them.

MT: So that we meet on a regular basis, not too often. But if another issue comes up that we want to bring the powers that be, we can bring all kinds of networks in and not have just the Chamber speak but also this group and this group and this group.

CS: Hopefully, out of this committee that I'm on we can identify--and that's the hard part; I think we've gotten probably 99% of them right now-Identify who all these organizations are and then who are really in economic development.

MT: And so we want to do the same thing for these political action [???].

CS: And feed that in with your efforts.

EG: And consult with them when we have to make decisions, take, you know, an opinion on an issue, a local issue.

JS: I think Marilyn's got the biggest task in terms of a bunch of loose ends to try and make Into something presentable to the board of directors. You really do. But it's the nature of that beast, you've got CB Daniel's group, who are communicators, you've got the PAC... that we really need to tie down, Boy, that is flopping around on the deck and is gonna blow a hole in the side of this outfit If we're not careful. And you've got to somehow keep...

MT: Who have you designated as chair for that?

JS: Not anybody yet but I'd like for it to be Ben Campen. Or Fred Henderson probably would be a good one. He's been there a while. I think I'll make it Fred.

MT: He's not chairman of one of your...

CS: No.

MT: I thought he was community improvement.

CS: Yes, Fred Henderson is community improvement. You're right.

JS: If he's gonna be at the meeting, he might as well chair it; he's on the PAC. See, what we've got now is it's moved back and forth between Bart Kimball and Jim Moore--both committed people, but really insensitive to the impact of some of the ways that they say things. And I think the letter that was written without... and the decision not to have media attended interviews with all the public officials was a... We can never let that happen again.

SD: What would be our position as far as some of the terms we made at our planning session for doing away with the PAC?

JS: That would be fine with me, but I think we need to do that and deliver...

SD: Is that something Fred and them need to know that that's under consideration? To see if they can change it and if they as a committee want to retain it, well they can...

MT: The purpose of the PAC was to make, was to gain Influence and to make sure that we have access to people in governmental power. And if we can achieve that you know in other ways without drumming our membership for extra money then they should be satisfied with that.

JS: Steve made a very good argument for doing away with the PAC at the annual meeting, didn't he? Steve DeMontmollin. At the meeting, at the retreat meeting, identified that we're going to get a meeting early on with the PAC. I think probably what I need to do is have the appointments approved at the board. Right? Get the new people on board. Check with Fred Henderson, see him If he'll be chairman, then ask if he'll call a joint meeting of the executive committee and the PAC. How's that sound?

Yeah, ask him to chair it and kill It? (laughter)

JS: I think we'll probably ought to talk to the board of directors about that. But I think we can move it a little further along that road.

SD: That's true, but you know, I've had some comments from some members who don't think that the PAC ought to remain. JS: I made one of those executive decisions and changed the billing so you can opt not to, to deduct out your contribution to the PAC and pay the net. I've made it so you opt to pay the extra and become a member of the PAC. Then we're gonna have a real reading about who really Intends to pay for the PAC. Because some businesses like yours, the bill comes in and they pay the bottom line. And we found out one group has over-contributed to the PAC because they keep paying the bottom line on a quarterly bill. And made four different contributions to the PAC, and we know that's just a bookkeeping issue. So Mo and I have already set that into motion, and if you guys object to that, tough shit, I'm president. (laughter)

OK, let me think, what else have we got in your arena. Boy, you've got a big one. It has taken off, too. And you're going to set up, for the benefit of the executive committee, we're gonna set up a ghost-writing group over there. They're gonna crank out letters to the editor on appropriate topics. And what we're gonna do is pass 'em around for signature. I generated a letter to the editor today from my periodontist, Seth Weintraub. He went in, wrote it, called me, said "Give me some statistics on this, this, and this." And we got 'em and he, writin' the letter--he can't wait to get it down there to the Gainesville Sun.

MT: Oh good, I love Seth.

JS: So, uh, but I think if we can do that, and we may have to call on some members of the executive committee once in a while to put their name on the bottom, the line. But, uh...

MT: I would like... if you would ... When Nancy [Stevenson] comes on board, another task for her is to kind of identify, use the City Directory or something, to identify some of these other letter-writers who take other points of view? To find out, you know, with whom they're aligned, so you could kind of discourage them from writing, if you're saying, "But you're gonna have to pay taxes in five years..."

JS: You know what we've done along those lines? Every time you mention something, there's another thing that's gone on... it's been a hell of a three weeks now, I tell ya!

I had a meeting with Marshall Criser, and he committed to this, among other things: that every time a member of his faculty gets up at a public meeting or writes a letter that is dillatory [sic] about economic development or about this community, he will get someone of equal or higher credentials to write a letter or go to a public meeting in opposition to that point of view.

MT: Oh, outstanding.

JS: So you need to put that into your bag of tricks, 'cause that's available. And I called It already on the letter from that wacko* about the research park. (Wed., Jan. 8. John Mahon, December McSherry, Dwight Adams, Francine Robinson]

MT: Oh my goodness! He's terrible.

JS: He's a professor at the university. Still.' I think. (Laughter) When that came out in the morning. I called Marshall's office. He was, busy; I talked to Al Alsobrook. And I said "Did you read the morning paper? He said, 'Nah, not yet. What's in it? Something good? Aha, your boy is out on the limb again" ' And, 'uh... Dwight Adams is his name.

And so the first choice is to get his department head to write a letter against what he said. That has a chilling effect on future letters.

CS: Just a little bit.

JS: And we're gonna hope that that's who It's gonna be, but someone who at least has equal credentials, but preferably someone who is his superior.

SD: That ought to persuade him.

JS: We may slow down some of Dwight's activity.

And then that other guy that's over there...

MH: That's with Geography, or... The one that was at that meeting? Yeah, I've got his name on my desk. [Grant Thrall; at the Affordable Housing Workshop, Thursday, Jan. 8)

JS: OK. What Marshall wants to know is what hours he’s showing up for these all-day workshops over there. So I've got to get that figured out somehow. And I asked Tom [Coward?] to get me the hours of that workshop that he was complaining about. It's very simple to find out whether or not they're expecting him to teaching at that time, and if he's not... Somebody, his employer,-ought to know about his, the way he's using his time.

He wants to know that; I mean, I didn't generate that, he asked that question. So if we can come up with that information we may slow down some of these...

SD: Oh, this is super.

JS: [???] at the university. Your side is really bubbling, lady!

MT: Sounds like fun!