Meet the Candidates

 I'm kicking myself for not having thought of this a few weeks ago.  But those few weeks are gone.

As you know, we have always had Meet the Candidates events before elections.  That is, until after 2016, with the exception being the special election at the end of 2019.  Someone (it seems to me that in recent years, it's been Linda Dillon, and maybe other people) puts together the idea, goes about some process of deciding what questions to ask, asks the Commission to waive the fee for use of a large public space (recreation building or log cabin), and asks Drew Dillworth to be the moderator.  These events are orderly, and they provide a forum for whoever is the interested public to see how candidates answer questions.  For the record, the set-up, for as long as I've witnessed it, is that each candidate answers the same question, there are time limits, and there is no follow-up.

This year, probably for coronavirus reasons, no one organized a Meet the Candidates event.

Because I associate this event with Linda Dillon, I reached out to Linda, to ask her if she would organize such an event.  She told me that one of the candidates is a good friend of hers, and so she would not organize the event.  I didn't bother to press Linda on how there can be any connection between having the event and preferring one of the candidates.  Linda said no, and I took no for an answer.

During my very brief stint on Nextdoor, I happened to encounter a comment from Barbara Kuhl, in which Barbara bemoaned the absence of a Meet the Candidates event this year.  So I wrote to Barbara to ask her to organize one.  And I said I would do anything I could to help, if she needed or wanted my help.  Barbara did not respond to my e-mail.

I then (in the past day) had the idea to use this blog to have a written Meet the Candidates event.  I imagined reaching out to the five candidates other than myself, to ask them to participate, and I was going to try to figure out what questions to ask us.  I figured I would ask us about the millage, the complaint about meetings, WastePro/sanitation, 6th Avenue, and anything else I could think of that seemed like a standard community matter question.

I was reluctant to do this myself, because I didn't want it to seem as if I had rigged it in any way, so I called Mac Kennedy, to see if he wanted to help me try to get engagement from the other candidates, and come up with questions.  Mac thought that his doing this with me would be as bad as my doing it myself, and Mac had a very interesting idea.

Mac's idea was that none of the candidates participate in posing questions -- as normally none of them do -- but that I announce an empty forum, and let the composition of questions come from the public.  Mac's concept was that this would be set up like a town hall presentation, that anyone who has a question ask it, and that any candidates who want to offer an answer go for it.  And this may be the best idea there is left at this very late hour, when increasing numbers of Village residents have already voted by mail, and it takes time -- at least a couple of days -- for Village residents to pose questions, and candidates to answer them.

Unfortunately, one of the biggest problems we have this year, which is the same problem we had in 2016, 2017 (special election, no Meet the Candidates event), and 2018 (no Meet the Candidates event) is that painfully few candidates formulate and communicate a vision or an agenda, and they are not forced to do it here, either.  So in many respects, voters are still voting blind.  And it's too late to do anything about that.  If an idea like this one had been hatched a few weeks or so ago, someone could have set up a Zoom Meet the Candidates event, and we could have cured our deficiency.  But, as I say, those weeks are gone now, and this is all there is.

So, I will take care of reaching out to the five candidates other than myself.  I will give them the address for this blog, and ask them to check it often.  I will publicize this opportunity as much as I can.  You can begin (very quickly!) to compose and enter questions.  I hope 1) you get answers, and 2) those answers are relatively concise.  Obviously, there's no time clock, and I do not feel like trying to guess how many words or lines a candidate should be limited to using to answer you.

This post is introductory.  I will wait several hours or so, and I will publish a second post called Meet the Candidates Event.  (I'll add the word Event.)  It is in the comment section of that post that you can pose your questions.