Public Input Needed on Gas Drilling in Denton
Natural gas drilling ordinance revisions will soon be a topic for the City Council to discuss. In order to make sure that citizens are the ones shaping this important policy for Denton, there are several recent initiatives that you should be aware of…
The city has put together a new website designed to educate, answer questions, and update citizens on the upcoming drilling ordinance rewrite – check it out here. As part of the process, the city has organized a committee to help guide the development of policy. Three members of this committee are designated as citizen representatives. They will be hosting their first Public Meeting this next Thursday, August 25 from 6:30 to 8:30pm in the Civic Center in order to receive public input at the outset of this process. A Facebook page has been created to help promote this meeting – please pass around to your friends.
In order to ensure an even broader avenue for citizen input, an independent group of concerned citizens has emerged under the name, Denton Stakeholder Drilling Advisory Group. This group has come about as the result of collaborative discussions between me, UNT professors associated with the Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity, and several engaged citizens. The purpose of this group is to fully engage the citizenry in a democratic discussion on this important topic and to work with the official city process to provide policy recommendations, developed after directed and purposeful deliberations done in a series of open and transparent meetings. If you are interested in becoming an official member of this group, please contact me or Dr. Adam Briggle.
To officially kick things off, this Advisory Group is hosting a panel discussion THIS MONDAY, August 22 at 8pm at the Environmental Building at UNT, featuring regional experts on municipal gas drilling policy. This event is free and open to the public. Here is a link to the Facebook event so that you can share with your friends. More info can be found on the flyer below…
