>> hi, my name is patrick mele, and i'm here to give a voice of support for creation of a public bank, i think this is a good idea and something i studied in grad school. i will echo a lot of what has been said already but being able to use the $9.6 billion in funds for things we need in a community into a commercial bank looking for what the shareholders need, moves money out of the community, which as mentioned earlier, as executive compensation of $22 million or more, $800,000 in fees that were being charged to use our own money, and a public bank could get us out of the trap of using bonds and loans for every type of funding that we need. so a lot of things i was going to say have already been said, i want to talk about safety. paramount importance, the county keeping our money safe and i don't think right now keeping money in commercial banks is safe. we saw after 2008 with b. of a. citigroup and u.s. bank all needing to be bailed out. bank of north dakota, not bailed out. and what we are starting to see now, in europe, obviously, with portugal and greece, we are seeing instead o