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The City came in for criticism for its (non) response to Tuesday evening's severe stormy weather. |
The well-attended League of Women Voters Council candidate forum at duCret Wednesday evening reminded me of the comforts and dangers of this form.
(The Freeholder forum slated to precede it was a bust, with only two candidates [of nine] showing up, meaning that per LWV rules no forum could be held.)
The comfort comes from both the form itself and the audience.
I refer to the LWV format as the gold-standard of forums for a reason: it is time-tested, fair, and does not allow the forum to be captured by any one of the candidates or their followers (though admittedly the moderator sometimes had to stare down claques that insisted on applauding and cheering their candidate).
As far as the audience goes, immediately I came into the room I felt as if I were at a family reunion. After more than 30 years of attending these events, the number of repeat attendees has always been very high, and people have socialized after the forum -- regardless of which side they were on -- with other attendees as though greeting long lost relatives.
Both those things are good, good for community feeling in a time of division and hopeful for Plainfield's future.
The danger of the form comes in regard to the candidates themselves.
We're a small town really, and pretty much everyone who come out knows several -- if not all -- the candidates.
But, like political figures everywhere, these folks are tempted to have an answer for every question -- sometimes straying out of their depth, sometimes failing to properly frame the discussion, sometimes answering questions that don't deserve answers.
Let me illustrate --
THE (PERPETUAL) YOUTH CENTER "ISSUE"
It seems like the idea of a "youth center" comes up during every election cycle.
It is never well-defined.
Candidates almost to a person respond favorably -- if sometimes vaguely.
No candidate ever asks how much this might cost, where it should be located, or how much it would add to the permanent tax burden to build, maintain, staff and insure such a facility.
No candidate ever asks why the Board of Ed seems to have welched on the "Community Schools" (Washington and Emerson), that are supposed to open their facilities to young people (and others) in the evenings and on weekends.
No candidate ever cites voluntary youth programs that are in existence -- like the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts and various church youth groups.
So both the candidates and the voting public are just settling for bromides. What's the point of that?
THE STORM ALERT
In the course of the forum, the fact that the City of Plainfield did not issue a robocall concerning the fast-moving storm alert Tuesday night came up.
Immediately, candidates began criticizing the City.
No one seemed to understand the difference between the National Weather Service wireless alert system which targets cellphones from their regional headquarters which is tasked 24/7 with nothing but weather; and the city's robocall system, which must be activated by a script approved by a City official and then recorded by a staffer before being broadcast.
The storm threat was fast moving and long-gone before the City could have even thought of responding.
None of this was pointed out by candidates who felt under pressure to have an immediate answer to the matter.
UNIONS vs. LOCAL EMPLOYMENT BY DEVELOPERS
During the discussion of development projects, the question came up whether the City should push for local employment or the use of union employees.
My heart warmed to hear candidate Terri Briggs Jones speak up strongly in favor of unions (she is a union member and long-time employee of the Piscataway public schools; I am not aware of union connections among any of the other candidates).
After all, unions brought us the 8-hour day, the invention of the weekend (with the 5-day week), improved pay and better working conditions.
Other candidates pointed to efforts to get developers to agree to hire local employees.
Both responses failed to frame the question in a better way.
When we are talking construction employment, we are NOT talking the kind of union of which Briggs Jones has experience.
Instead, we are talking the construction trades unions, which are still among the most racially segregated unions in the country. Using those unions would be absolutely no guarantee of fair opportunities for minority workers.
Using "local contractors" also misses the mark -- but on the other side. To my knowledge, local contractors do not boast their employees are unionized. In fact, they hold out to developers that they are less expensive because they are not unionized and their pay scales are lower.
When it comes to economic justice for local workers, we need a reframing of the discussion, not a repetition of the same old bromides.
All of this means that voters need to exercise their own judgment carefully as they enter the voting booth on Tuesday to roll the dice for another chapter in the ongoing drama of democracy in the United States.
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