CANDIDATES FORUM

I attended the dinner before the Candidates' Forum for City Council candidates, and two of the candidates, whom I did not know, sat down at my table. Of the incumbents, I found one to be condescending, one to be patronizing, and another to be ignorant; the fourth one only made one suggestion and that was that we needed another reservoir!

This is a non-partisan race; of the four new candidates, there is a small business owner, a retired firefighter, a teacher, and a computer specialist. One of the people is a Libertarian, two are registered Democrats, and the other a registered Republican. Being a "female chauvinist", I was hoping to be able to find reasons to vote for the two female candidates. As I told an associate who thinks we should vote for women just because they are women, I said that I would vote for them only if they are the most qualified.

One of the new candidates referred to herself in the third person! Then she used the word "niche" three times and pronounced it "nitch". (I don't care if that is an "acceptable" American pronunciation, it is still "NEESH" to me!)

After I came home, Les asked me to describe the candidates and I said that there was "no way that I would vote for that elitist snob." He laughed uproariously and said, "You're calling someone an elitist snob when you're judging her for using the third person and pronouncing niche in the American way; talk about the kettle calling the snob black!" I said, "No, it was her bragging about their summer place and her kid in football and I found it déclassé to be boasting about possessions in the presence of poor people!"

Before I went to the dinner, I had made up my mind that I would not make any comments, but only listen! During dinner, the husband of the elitist snob said that all the drug "people" should be put on chain gangs. I asked, very quietly, "Do you know the yearly cost to us taxpayers to maintain prisoners?" Because I had not spoken, he looked shocked but answered, "30,000." Although I was impressed that his figure was close to being accurate, it was an E.F. Hutton moment as others leaned forward to hear my next comment, "Surely you're aware that the cost of incarceration is far more costly than the cost of treatment for drug addiction." Another person at the table interjected that they still need to be punished. I said, "Frankly, I do not think it behooves society to have drug users placed with hardened criminals." I then launched into my anti-private prisons rant.

In his presentation, one of the incumbent candidates was bewailing that "the State" had taken away funding from the city and county. I stated, to the candidates sitting at my table, "But I bet you all voted for Kasich." For some reason they didn't engage in any more conversation with me.

We were not allowed to confront the candidates but had to submit our questions for the candidates in writing. It had been tiresome hearing the incumbents pat themselves on their backs about their accomplishments and yet not name any accomplishments. I submitted my question: "The incumbents keep bragging about their accomplishments, yet I haven't heard them name one single accomplishment." The answers from the incumbents were hardly impressive and one was disingenuous, citing the City Charter being enacted as an accomplishment, which didn't happen during his term.

Another person asked whether the candidates believed that the City Manager should apologize for some unfortunate statements he had made. One of the incumbents actually said that the City Manager shouldn't have to answer for his statements because he's not "elected"! Boy, that's the best argument I ever heard for a mayoral form of government!

There are four slots to be selected but, in good conscience, I can only vote for three candidates.