On March 25th I was fortunate enough to attend a public meeting between Mayor Pam Iorio and the TECO Energy Conservation Task Force.
As the public meeting began, and as the Florida handbook identifies, an open-door policy was enacted as well as having a conference room recorder record the dialogue of the meeting. Funny thing is Mayor Iorio was the one who said, “Do we have the sunshine covered?”
The meeting was led by Tom Snelling, Tampa’s Deputy Director/Green Officer of growth management and services, with a PowerPoint presentation followed by interaction between the task force, a TECO representative and the Mayor.
The point of the TECO Energy Conservation Task Force was to analyze current efforts TECO is making to promote going green, having sustainable energy and what rebates or financial incentives TECO is offering their customers. Recommendations for these efforts were then created by the Task Force.
The issue of education and communication was the most thoroughly discussed topic. Prompting consumer awareness and participation were main components of the dialogue.
Whether it was a reporter, environmental activist or home/factory builder, the idea of marketing to a segmented, target audience became the mechanism needed to satisfy the Task Force’s goal of educating the public about what incentives and innovative technologies TECO has to offer and how it can be put in your home.
Mayor Iorio’s response to that suggestion was whether or not to target people who use lots of power and typically don’t change their ways or the homes that use little power, and somewhat leave only a “small footprint” in the big picture. She followed up by asking the TECO representative if TECO has any commitment to funding this type of market research as well as offering services to their customers that showcase how to lower your bills and be more visible in the community.
In response, the TECO representative (who apparently was sitting in for someone that day) could only say that TECO already has a marketing program and they have not set aside any resources to contribute to the education funding.
This became somewhat of a sour meeting because of that and to the fact that no executive from TECO actually came to the meeting. The Task Force had already been working on this project for one year and this was supposed to be the Final Project meeting; however, Mayor Iorio decided to ask the members back for another session once she speaks with TECO officials.
Overall, it was interesting to sit in such a small room, the Mayor’s conference room, and interact with her, highly educated individuals as well as experts, and community representatives. I took pride in covering this event and Mayor Iorio specifically thanked us, the public/students, for attending.
No comments:
Post a Comment