Matt Gaetz holds oil spill town hall over the phone

FORT WALTON BEACH — More than 1,800 local citizens got on the phone Thursday evening with state Rep. Matt Gaetz, who fielded questions and concerns about the Gulf Coast oil spill.

Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach, hired Washington, D.C.-based Tele-Town Hall to dial up 9,400 House District 4 residents of all political affiliations at 6 p.m. A staffer sorted through the 1,848 callers who stayed on the line and passed them on to Gaetz.

“There’s no more of an important time to be getting feedback,” said Gaetz, who conducted the meeting at his local office at Uptown Station.

He spent time both answering questions and listening to ideas. He said some of the good suggestions included a long-term impact analysis down the road, more localized hazmat training and preparing for housing needs in case oil hits the shore and makes places unsafe to live.

While many callers talked about local issues such as oil mixing with June grass, many posed wider issues such as the spill’s implications for the country’s energy policy. One suggested more of an emphasis on drilling in the Midwest.

The first questioner wondered why boaters were not already on the water deploying booms. Gaetz said booms could be vandalized or accidentally run over, and authorities would wait until they were needed. He also expressed concern that doctors and lawyers are signing up to lay booms, potentially taking jobs away from professional captains.

“We need to make sure the people that get those jobs are actually affected,” he said.

Gaetz said he was dissatisfied with state tourism ads that showed images of South Beach and Naples. He said he told Gov. Charlie Crist to take plans directly from Tourist Development Councils in Northwest Florida and target advertisements to Houston and Birmingham rather than New York and Chicago.

“We’ve made some progress,” he said of collaborating with Crist.

Gaetz called the federal government’s response “grossly inadequate.” He also said he was tired of high-level officials coming to the gulf to fly over the spill. Though he said he’s against big government running people’s lives, he said it needs to step up during a catastrophe.

“This is why government exists,” Gaetz said.