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Posted: 3:38 PM Jan 19, 2011
BP Claims Town Hall Meeting: Feinberg in Fort Walton
Okaloosa Island- Early Wednesday morning, Ken Feinberg was at the Emerald Coast Conference Center in Okaloosa County where more than 500 people packed the room eager to grill the claims Czar, and things were getting ugly over there too.
Reporter: Meagan O'Halloran Email Address: meagan.ohalloran@wjhg.com |
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Early Wednesday morning, Ken Feinberg was at the Emerald Coast Conference Center in Okaloosa County where more than 500 people packed the room eager to grill the claims Czar, and things were getting ugly over there too.
A packed house-- People spilling out into the hallways wanting answers from Ken Feinberg.
"I understand the inconsistencies, that's one reason I’m here. It's wrong. It's got to be corrected, but it's not like we're not paying out the money, we're paying out the money--the problem is, there are too many inconsistencies, there's not enough transparency and we're gonna deal with those problems" said Feinberg.
But for many, time has not been on their side and those problems are quickly turning into bigger ones. You could hear it in their voices with the mounting frustration rattling the room.
"My name is 1034444" says one angry resident.
With the power of numbers staring him in the face-- Feinberg agreed with a lot of the criticism and said trying to predict what the future holds in the gulf has been the biggest problem in establishing a universal criteria to assess claims.
Later Feinberg said "I agree it's taken longer than I thought it would but I want to make sure that when we announce some methodology in the next two weeks, finally, people will see the credible basis for making these determinations"
But one woman had enough of that answer.
"The methodology that you're working on? That's pie in the sky. That's $70-billion dollar man talk, that's not talk down here" she said.
BP has set aside $20 billion dollars for claims payout. To date, nearly $3 billion dollars has already been paid in over 168,000 claims, but hundreds of thousands of claims have been denied.
Latest Comments
The worst part of this town hall meeting was the rude and insensitive remarks given by the speaker for the chamber of commerce. It's not "make a wish", and the remarks about the owner of a strip club, "i bet half the people here have an open tab at her club" - paraphrased. Didn't anyone learn from the insensitive remarks given by the head of BP? This was disgraceful and I felt so sorry for the hundreds there who are in the process of losing everything. SHAME on the CHAMBER OF COMMERCE for such rude remarks.










