From the CCEC Board of Directors

A Position Paper On The Issue Of
State Budget Cuts and the State Energy Office:

CCEC, Inc. - June 2007

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Chatham Citizens for Effective Communities (CCEC), a grass roots citizen action organization with a mission to empower citizens to enhance Chatham's future is opposed to State Senate budget cuts that scuttle the highly effective State Energy Office and its dynamic Director, Larry Shirley.


CCEC's Board of Directors believes that such cuts and the proposed reshuffling of the Energy Office work into other already overburdened departments, deals a bad hand to not only citizens of Chatham County, but the entire state. The rationale and questionable motivation for the move leaves a bad taste in our mouth and doubts in our mind about the folly of such thinking. There's something wrong with this picture.

• If our house is ablaze and the fire department and its highly trained and dedicated crew of firefighters are making good progress on quelling the flames, we don’t want to see the Fire Chief and the rest of the department depart the scene to be replaced by some police and sanitary workers with, squirt guns, garden hoses and shovels, no matter how well intentioned they may be.There’s something wrong with this picture! picture!

• If one of the best neurosurgeons in the country and his/her surgical team is making stellar progress in removing that malignant tumor from my brain, I don’t want them carted out of the O R to be replaced by a team of overworked pediatricians and proctologists. I don’t care that they, too, have a medical degree. There’s something wrong with this picture!

• If we’re in the midst of the Mother-of-all-pandemics and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) is racing ahead on all 8 cylinders to stem the tide, we don’t want to be informed that there is no more fuel in the tank to support their work, and they are a drag on more important programs.What?! There’s something wrong with this picture!

Yet that is the picture that the State Senate budget paints for us as it scraps the state's lead agency and research/implementation infrastructure on energy efficiency and renewable energy at THE most critical point in the history of energy management.

The State Energy Office "ain't broke" in terms of functionality. As its Director has shown you, and the media has reported to the public, the office has saved and can continue to save the state and its citizens money (savings of over $91 million at an expense of $6 million in fiscal year 2005-2006). Only you can "break" the Energy Office by the budget "fix" proposed by the Senate. Knowledgeable citizens concerned about our energy future are looking to you to keep the public trust and place our concerns above that of any corporate influence by finding ways to make the State Energy Office sustainable.

A less onerous and more palatable picture is painted by the House budget that while surgically removing some of the resources that fuel the Energy Office, still leaves the vehicle intact. CCEC's Board of Directors urges our legislators and the committee charged with working out the budget details to build upon the foundation laid by the House version rather than demolishing a worthy structure and sending its remains and its work off to other overworked departments. We ask for full funding of the State Energy Office and its Director, Larry Shirley, to enable it to continue its stellar performance at this critical time.

Respectfully,

Board of Directors - Chatham Citizens for Effective Communities (CCEC)
Loyse Hurley
Rita Spina
Joe Frazer
Caroline Siverson
Bob Eby
Jeffrey Starkweather
Rich Hayes
John Graybeal
Peter Rubinas


(CCEC, Inc. is a 501(c)4 non-for-profit grassroots citizens’ action organization based in Chatham County North Carolina for the purpose of advocating on behalf of citizens in regards to countywide issues, and seeking to influence decision-making on all issues that impact the quality of life of Chatham and neighboring counties.)

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