Debate Gone Bad (a sequel to Norwalk is Doomed)

Not so long ago, on late night TV, there was the lurid escapades of the “Girls Gone Wild” video franchise, an exercise in some dude thinking up a creative way to film girls exposing various body parts without having to pay for professional, ahem, actresses. Watching the at-large debates kinda reminded me of that, not because there was any porn involved, although that might have spiced things up a bit, but rather the debate seemed to be a self indulgent exercise in being able to ask 10 at-large council candidates really long and meandering questions and then not really letting a debate unfold. What is the point?

Take the first question, please — Climate and global warming. Six weeks from now, governments will be convening a public climate change conference in order to create a new treaty. In honor of October, the international day of  ******, name at least 2 ways the city can reduce their carbon footprint and would you support a citizen based sustainability committee.

And how can the city of Norwalk shore up the dollar and what would you say at Davos?

Sadly, reducing energy costs, reducing garbage production, reducing ambient light are all worthy discussion points. It would be great to hear ideas from the candidates regarding the reduction of paper waste through the use of technology. Or addressing long standing issues of composting yard waste. Or how about a philosophical question about whether tis greener of the mind to keep old buildings standing or raze them and construct new made in china buildings?

There really was only one question that needed to be asked of each candidate, with Norwalk facing even less revenue than this year where do you stand on raising property taxes, increases user fees or leasing city assets for alternative revenue? 10 candidates, and I bet we’d get very different answers and examples. They might even debate each other too.

But at long last, and I do mean it took a long time and an upgrade of my vimeo account to bring this 90 minute, thing to you.

Norwalk Common Council at-large debate from jackie lightfield on Vimeo.

enjoy. The questions to the candidates about 8 minutes 10 seconds in.

  • Barnstorm

    Kind of what I’ve been saying all along. These are not “debates”. They are merely forums for the candidates to see who can be more self-serving than the next guy.

  • Publius

    The LWV does a lousy job of running all the debates. The questions stink, the moderators have no control over the event, plus the planning logistics are disorganized. The LWV should be dumped. Instead the RTC and DTC should form a commission that runs all the deabtes in a professional manner (like the national GOP and DEMs do for the Presidential Debates).

    • marg5150

      I support your idea 150%! It is a great idea, how can we get it started for the next election?

      After all, 8 minutes (per Jackie thank goodness) was spent on stupid talking, then LWV counldn’t get along, so then they changed their minds again. If you consider all the time wasted 20 minutes of a 90 minute program was wasted.

  • OLD TIMER

    Putting a debate together, particularly involving so many people, is a lot of work. LWV, like a lot of organizations, leaves most of the work to a very small number of people. They have been doing it for years, and consider it a public service. If there is another nuetral organization or club that wants to help out, or even set up a seperate debate, go for it. The more opportunities we get to see the candidates in action, the better. The mayor’s debate at City Hall had three sponsors, as I recall, and could have used more, assuming some help comes with the sponsorship. That debate should have been longer and some better way of collecting and organizing questions would have helped.