By Sharon Dooley.
Sunday evening will see the first of several get togethers for the District 4 County Council Special Primary hopefuls.
This first foray will showcase the Democrats and the Green Party Candidate in an open forum at the lovely mansion headquarters of the Audubon Society, "Woodend", at their sanctuary at 8940 Jones Mill Road just South of the Beltway in Chevy Chase. All candidates have been confirmed as attending and there is expected to be a lively discussion on several compelling topics such as the ICC, the environment, the county and state budget as well as education and unions. Several progressive groups and the Audubon Society are sponsoring this first outing. There will also be a corresponding Republican forum at a later date.
For the uninformed, there is a vast field already in place for this special primary scheduled for Tuesday April 21st - with a general election set for May 18th between the winners of the primary.
The candidates are: in alpha order by party -
Democrats:
Michael Bigler, funeral director
Robert Goldman, attorney
Thomas Hardman (Republican candidate in 08) IT developer
Ben Kramer - State Delegate D19
Cary Lamari - Former Civic Fed President
Nancy Navarro - Board of Education member
Green Party - unopposed
George Gluck - consultant
Republicans
Lou August Non profit executive, entrepreneur
Robin Ficker - real estate broker - attorney
Andrew Padula - Artist/activist
Each candidate is expected to stake ground on what each considers his or her strong suit - Navarro will probably stress her background in education, Kramer is expected to address his business strengths, Lamari will review land use and planning board concerns, and Hardman may mention his views on immigration, just to mention a few areas of possible discussion.
But hopefully this forum will elicit some new information that the voting public can carry with them to the polls. When there were multiple forums in a short period of time as happened last year, the discussions quickly became unexciting, repetitive and predictable as no one wished to say the wrong thing that could become tomorrows headlined misstep.
Since this is the first forum of this new primary season - let's hope new ground is plowed, new questions are proposed and straightforward answers fall from the lips of the assembled candidates. Wouldn't that be a refreshing change? Since I may be among the questioners tomorrow - I wonder what MPW readers think should be the most important question we ask tomorrow evening? I don't mean a curve ball for some and a fast ball for others; I genuinely want to hear - what is the most pressing issue in the county today that an incoming council person should be prepared to address on this Sunday evening? No on the job training - hit the ground running, people - be ready to deal with this on your first council day - (given that the current council will have the tough budget decisions wrapped up by then).
So comment away folks, - let me know what you think - ASAP - soon we will get in to the options about what next steps might be should either Navarro (empty seat on the BOE) or Kramer -(empty seat in D19 Delegation) win this one. Who do you hear is lining up for any vacancy - should it occur? And with choices for the Planning board to be decided almost as soon as the signing ink on the election certificate is dry, the newly elected council person will need to be ready. Are there still surrogate battles to be fought as current council members step up on either one side or the other of the fences here? Who is staying out or who is truly on the fence - what is it they say, never a dull moment in an off election year?
Sunday, March 22, 2009
County Council Forum
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6 comments:
Personally I expect that one of the thing that's going to have to be handled from the first day on the job is going to be money issues.
Usually politicians get their positions by making promises and more promises, generally for more spending to favor this or that particular group of special interests.
But we're not in a usual situation. Nobody's got money to spare, and the budget needs to be massively cut rather than ballooned out as usual.
Astute observers will recall that in last year's Special Election, I was talking about foreclosures and "the economic calamity only now starting to unfold around us". I based my whole campaign on austerity measures and the economic crisis; it wasn't even remotely on any other candidate's radar.
Well, it's front and center now. Have the other candidates given any thought to where they want to cut?
It is just typical of so-called "progressive" groups, who believe in free speech so long as it is their own, to not invite all the candidates to one forum. Are these the same "progressive" groups that supported a 20% increase in the regressive state income tax while the internet and Delaware, with which Maryland shares an 85 mile border, have no sales tax at all?
Mr Ficker, given the number of people and the time constraints, if the Republican candidates had been invited, they could have given each candidate only about 30 seconds and not allowed any questions from the audience. By the way, this was actually fairly well-attended though a lot of the people there seemed to be campaign staffers as well as activists in some of the Urban Planning and Conservation fields.
So far as I know, most of the other Candidate Forums will be open to all, regardless of party, with the likely exception of the Young Democrats "do" at the American Film Institute.
I should of course point out that a lot of interesting, and in many cases heartfelt, answers were given by all of the candidates. I'd like to declare that my own performance shone, but however pompous and stiff I may be, I refuse to also be a liar. ;)
Sharon, thanks for the upbeat, bright post. I'm sorry that I didn't see it until Monday morning, after the event. While I knew about the forum, I couldn't go due to the late time at which the forum was held.
Please do not infer that I am saying anything was wrong with that. The scheduling conflict that I have is my own doing in that I turn into a pumpkin earlier than most folks.
I hope you or someone who attended will report the key questions and responses given by the candidates who attended. I figure that I am not the only one who missed it for one reason or another.
Thanks Tom for your candid remarks. Mr. Ficker, as I understand the premise - Audubon will schedule another forum for Republican candidates. To have had everyone at the event last evening would have been non-productive as we had an agenda we timed out fairly well and it still lasted until after 9:30pm.
To all of those pumpkins out there - and you know who you are -that cannot make it to a Sunday evening event: I hope to have a blog up about this by Wednesday. Kevin may have photos sooner with his comments.
Sharon
Rocky, you could probably contact Ms Dolores Milmoe of Audubon as she was one of the MCs of the event. If she herself can't hook you up with their "response matrix", she can probably point you to someone who will. 301-652-9188 x 19
Audubon Naturalist.
Many of the scheduled questions had to do with such things as the disability scandal, Master Plan positions, ICC, and questions about "which comes first, developments or infrastructure". There were of course some questions about affordable housing, and where to make cuts in future budgets. There were also some questions particular to the Ag Reserve, such as about sand-mounds and child-lots.
I don't want to attempt to speak for anyone else about the answers to these questions, nor would it be fair for me to give my own opinions while not giving equal time for the other respondents. That being said, someone was there making video of the whole thing, and one may hope that in the interest of full public benefit, they will upload all questions and all answers by all candidates, as well as a copy of the hand-out questionnaire that everyone received, to the InterNet.
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