Thank you.
I'm just a little bit concerned and would appreciate the thoughts of you and other members. But February 8--today is February 1--is one week from today. Nothing is going to be received today, so it's going to be less than a week.
If my note-taking is correct, we made phone calls and left messages on the tenth and thirteenth of December. On December 16 we sent registered mail giving her until January 14 just to get back to us. And here we are suggesting something less than a week to actually arrange one's affairs to be here. That's assuming someone wants to.
I'm just concerned that someone could make a reasonable argument that if they don't finally get contacted until Wednesday or Thursday--“gee, I can't make February 8”--that opens up an opportunity to.... Let's just say that if one wanted to be obstructionist in terms of coming here, you could plant a whole lot of roadblocks in the way.
All of that is to say I'm wondering if we shouldn't.... I heard what you said, Chair, about what we have planned. My thought was that first date after that, which is about two and a half weeks. I take Mr. Kramp's point that not only do we always have to be taking care of people's rights, but there's a bit of Caesar's wife here, and we have to be seen to be fair-minded. I'm just concerned that this may not look fair to have such a tight timeframe on a summons. But that could be just me. I'm thinking we might want to go for that other date, but....