October 6, 2009

Council debates on October 20th

The 12 candidates vying for City Council seats will face off during a live debate at City Hall on October 20.
The debate, sponsored by the Central Connecticut Chamber of Commerce, is slated to air live in Nutmeg Community Television.
Nutmeg will also tape and broadcast the mayoral debate the chamber is sponsoring next week.
The chamber’s debates are being co-sponsored by Bristol Hospital and The Bristol Press.
With only four of the six incumbent councilors seeking reelection -- at least two newcomers are bound to join the council following the November 3 municipal election.
The public is invited to watch the council debates for free at City Hall.
In addition to airing live on Nutmeg TV, they’ll also be rebroadcast at least a couple of times before the election. The mayoral debate will also be shown more than once. But times and dates are not yet available.
At this point, there are no other forums or debates scheduled.
For the council showdown, there will be three half-hour debates, one for each district, beginning agt 7 p.m. for the 1st District. The 2nd District debate is slated to start at 7:35 p.m. and the hotly contested 3rd District should get underway at 8:10 p.m.
The 1st District pits incumbents Mike Rimcoski, a Republican, and Cliff Block, a Democrat, against Democrat Kevin Fuller and Republican Eldianne Bishop.
The 2nd District race features Democratic incumbent Kevin McCauley and Republican incumbent Ken Cockayne against the GOP’s Richard Scarola and Democrat Allen Marko.
In the 3rd District, where both incumbents are stepping down, those vying for election are Republicans Derek Czenczelewski and David Mills and Democrats Kate Matthews and Terry Parker.
The two top vote-getters in each district will take office. Council members serve two-year terms for a part-time salary of $10,000 annually.

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Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Betcha Bishop doen't show up.

Anonymous said...

Is Bishop even running still? I can't believe they could not come up with a better name then that. What about the District Chair?

Anonymous said...

Do the Republicans even care?

Anonymous said...

This will be the start of Cockaynes mayoral run.

Heaven help us!!!

Anonymous said...

Cockayne is already running from something, but it ain't higher office. Ask Diane Ferguson about it.

Anonymous said...

9:38

Steve, what is it?

Shouldn't the public know?

Steve Collins said...

Am I supposed to comprehend the vague mutterings of anonymous people?

Tim Gamache said...

First,EXCELLENT response Steve.Couldn't put it better myself.Second,while I really do appreciate the Chamber providing the only oppurtunity for voters to get to know all of the new comers running for City Council,I'm a bit disappointed with the time frame.Four candidates splitting up thirty minutes only allows each candidate 7+ minutes.Not alot of time to really get to know how they stand on issues important to us.I understand the time framing is dictated by Nutmeg,just wish there was a way we could give all the candidates for the Council adequate time to share their respective views on the issues.

Anonymous said...

12:32

But now, as a reporter, with that as a "tip", don't you think you could/should pursue it.

Or should everything be laid at the doorstep of the media?

Anonymous said...

Tim,

The candidates have/had all the time needed, all they had to do was put the information in articles in the media, speak out at meetings, be involved and available.

NONE did any of that!!!

Anonymous said...

3:42 is absolutely incorrect. the candidates have written articles for the paper that haven't been printed yet. i know many of the candidates who attend city and local meetings regularly and speak out when appropriate. i imagine that if you wanted to get in touch with the candidates in your district, you would find that they are easily accessible. many have websites, and most are in the phonebook.
tim is right. how can you have a 30 minute debate where four people will speak? after introductions are made and the question announced, they'll probably have only 5 minutes to speak. that's not much time to fully address any issue that's facing the city right now. its a poorly planned event, but at least the chamber is doing it... no one else stepped up.

Anonymous said...

10:19

The papers are very responsible when it comes to printing articles. I doubt that they are holding anything back.

I also attend meetings and am apalled at how infrequently I see any candiate attend, let alone speak out.

Guess you must be one of the appeasers, trying to make your inadequate candidates look good.

Anonymous said...

10:19

No Ads, No Press releases, No letters.
No appearances at most functions.

Where are the candidates?

Anonymous said...

2:28 and 9:06

You are both either blind, the same person, or completely out of the loop if you think that none of the candidates have offered press releases, attended various community events and have attended city meetings.

Perhaps you should become more active in finding the information you seek, as it is readily available should you open your eyes.

Steve Collins said...

Every candidate press release has been put on this site. So you can judge from that which ones are issuing anything.
Certainly some have been at city meetings and events, too. I've seen them.

Anonymous said...

Steve, how does one get thir release in the paper, not just on your blog?

Steve Collins said...

We don't print candidate press releases in the paper. If it's something newsworthy, I'll write a story. That's actually happened most of the time this year because there haven't been that many press releases. What's nice about this blog is that for the first time, we're able to put all of the stuff we get out to the public in some way. That's a big step forward over the way it used to be.
I should add, too, that what's newsworthy one day may not be the next. It all gets weighed with what else is happening. I do try, however, to get back to things that matter.
Candidates are always free, of course, to buy ads and say pretty much whatever they like in them.

not said...

that's the stupidity of even having debates, no one even takes the time to go to council meetings or community stuff so how are they going to know what's going on? we have to be real idiots if we just vote for people 'cuz they want to be elected.

Anonymous said...

Steve, are you saying that your Blog has more viewers than the Press has readers?

Why not do both?

With your concern about information availability, why not print releases from candidates?
Even a limit of one per week would provide information to the voters, information that they might otherwise not get.

Steve Collins said...

Newspaper space is way too valuable to simply hand it over for free to political candidates.

Anonymous said...

I don't agree with what you call "press releases." I understand you will print something when a councilman approaches you with an issue, but I believe most of the time it's done to toot their own horns. I'd rather see information from a councilman that was initiated by you, Steve, than to just let a councilman tell you, by the way, I did this, this, this and this. It's difficult to substantiate what was actually done by that person and believe me, I've seen some stuff that some councilmen have taken credit for when in reality it was someone else doing all the work behind the scenes and would rather not pat themselves on the back just to get attention and take credit where credit isn't due. However, I believe that needs to be done fairly. Just my opinion, mind you.