Early all-candidates debate OK by Mertens
The following guest blog post first appeared on http://Mertens4Mayor.com on June 10, 2010. An image of the Gazette article was dropped from this blog post because it was too large for the layout of my site. You can read an exact copy of the article in the Mertens4Mayor.com media section.
In this morning’s Picton Gazette, one of the front page stories is about the mayoral election and the early all-candidates debate planned for June 17. While candidate, Sandy Latchford, has opted out of the debate, Peter Mertens and the other three candidates do plan to attend.
A spokesperson for the group planning the event says they’ve organized it for a date three months before nominations close because there’s a lot of interest in the mayoral race.
A potential voter named Chris Jeffery on Monday asked of Peter his opinion of the early all-candidates debate. Here is Peter’s public reply:
Hi Chris. I don’t have any difficulty with the timing of this all-candidates meeting. Giving people an opportunity to hear the candidates before the summer lull may help create some additional interest in this election, especially on the part of non-residents. Insofar as your question on giving any candidate an unfair advantage: I agreed to participate on the basis of information I was provided; and that was that Concerned Citizens will provide their list of questions beforehand and will ask each candidate to answer each question. The balance of the meeting will be questions from the public. I believe this is a fair approach.
