I guess I don't understand why you would not want to respond in a written way to a question, unless you didn't want to have a record of the conversation. We have had two people now announce candidacies on this board, and it would seem that in fairness, if you use email as a means to announce, you open yourself to email as a forum for questions as well. You can always choose to respond or not to questions, but I would posit that the written format allows for greater control and clearer organization of thought than a verbal communication.
I think that it is important to know a school board member's feelings about the public schools. The email from Ms. Gillespie didn't address that and I think that should be a central focus of her candidacy. I don't agree that that position should be one that is private between the two of us, and I don't think it should be ephemeral, like a telephone conversation would be. Let me give you an example. As Erin said in another posting, I attended a Streetbeat meeting with the mayor. As he spoke I took copious notes, leading him to exclaim "Boy, Jacob, you sure are writing a lot, perhaps you would share your notes with [I can't remember the name of his assistant]". I think that he was nervous that I was writing down things he assumed would be heard and forgotten. One of those things was his comment that the city had already sent out an RFP for the Hamm's brewery site and hadn't gotten any interest in redeveloping the existing buildings. Luckily, Ellen Biales, Kathy Lantry's aide, was there to clarify the situation and point out that that hadn't happened and that in fact there were developers who wanted to save the buildings. The entire event was filmed, but of course those tapes are his property, are being used for the Streetbeat project and are not available for public review. The notes I took are the only record of what went on other than memory. We all know how faulty memory can be and so those notes can serve as a lasting reminder of the things said that night. In the same way, an email record can be invaluable for future analysis and for either contradicting or backing up a persons' statements. I don't think that anyone should feel compelled to answer every nutty question, but it sure helps people appreciate you as a person, and your positions.
What do other people think? Should current and potential officials respond in a public, written way to off the cuff questions, or should they only respond to formally scripted events?
Jacob Dorer (sorry so long)
--On Friday, March 18, 2005 10:14 AM -0600 Anne Carroll <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Two items from me today:
1) Questions for candidates: Having been a school board candidate twice and now beginning my 6th year on the Board, I would like to caution list members about commencing a random e-based Q&A of candidates on this forum. When I was running the first couple of these queries I read seemed reasonable and valuable, but they rapidly progressed into issues that were virtually impossible to "discuss" in writing, irrelevant to service on the Board, or inappropriate to ask/answer. Yes, candidates for public office should expect to be asked such questions, but I will argue that they should never be compelled to respond, and especially not in writing on a public forum.
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