State Senator Don Gaetz emailed last week to the media and his constituents the list of BP Contacts in Florida. I had reporter Ryne Ziemba contact them to find who they were, what were their levels of expertise and how long they have been working with British Petroleum. Four of them took his phone call. Ziemba’s notes are in italics:
Bay County:
Kelly Hart
(505) 320-7703
Vani Rao
(713) 855-8823
BP rep in bay county for public info, since last week. Wouldn’t answer questions about Neil Ostrosky’s background. Wouldn’t discuss her background. She only told me she was a “badged employee of BPâ€. I asked her a few more questions, she said that she was formerly an “employee for Gulf of Mexico operations†for BP (from Houston office). She implied that she didn’t want to bore me with her long title (claimed that friends at parties got bored of hearing her title, thus I probably would too).
Walton County:
Neil Ostrosky
(281) 455-1142
Neil Ostrosky – community service liason, since last Tuesday, Vani wouldn’t tell me what he did or where he was from. She said that was “distractingâ€.
Gulf County:
David West
(281) 460-3806
Community Outreach leader, since last Tuesday, wouldn’t give his background. Said he was asked to refer all media inquiries to someone else. When I asked who I should talk to instead, he told me to talk to Liz Castro. However, he didn’t have her number or even know where Liz was based out of (he said he thought she was based out of Tallahassee).
Escambia County (Pensacola):
Lucia Bustamante
(281) 777-8565
Director of Public Affairs for BP since 1999 (from her resume’ http://www.linkedin.com/pub/lucia-bustamante/5/925/451)
Marisa Walker
(832) 451-5380
Santa Rosa County:
Bill Downey
(419) 450-3973
Okaloosa County:
Clayton Cochran
(281) 202-8686
Local community sup coordinator, a couple weeks, north American gas, engineer- 36 – said he could not field any technical questions (even though he’s an engineer).