I believe that Bill should be at the town meeting - he's the one that's been attending the council meetings, he's the one who advised back in July that CEN would hold an open house. He's the face of the company through this point. If he goes around saying he wants to be a good neighbor, then he should be present when he's the one organizing the event. Bill can come off as an egomaniac (reference comments about existing 40k registered patients and thoughts on the competition) and by not attending, it appears that the meeting is not important enough to warrant his presence. He's investing in this town - plans to be there for years, right? Plans to be the biggest @$#% business for miles around, right? If that's the case, spend the night with the community - period.

With that said, if the evening goes well with the town, it's all a moot point. But, if the questions get a bit difficult and he's assigned a babysitter to give simple answers and deflect anything too hard, then it becomes a PR disaster. We live in a world where perception is reality and if the representatives of CEN on hand tomorrow night aren't able to put a positive spin on this and satisfy the attendees, then it will be more of a mess to clean up.

Is it important that he's abroad doing business? I can only assume so, but let's get the CEN travel/meeting schedules straight and figure out how to address everything in the time it needs to be done. This wouldn't have been an issue if they would have scheduled the first date at the same time as the last council meeting and other events.

Regards,
-kbulldog.