Madison Candidate Forum: Perspective from the Podium

Good fun at the Madison Candidates Forum last night. We had a fair crowd, about 60 spectators, and countless others listening on KJAM AM 1390. As a participant at the podium, I can't offer the most objective view of the proceedings, but I had fun tackling the questions for us four school board candidates, and I did stick around for the city commission candidates' portion of the forum. Here are some observations, in no particular order:

Who comes up with these questions? Actually, the Chamber of Commerce Governmental Affairs Committee does. Here are the questions they prepared for the candidates:

School Board	City Commission
What is your opinion of the school's scheduling (trimesters, calendar, "first Friday" in-services)?	What are your plans to expand opportunities for the community?
What is your opinion of Tablet PCs in the classroom?	What are Madison's greatest strengths, and how would you capitalize on them?
What is your opinion of increased pay for teachers in specialized, hard-to-hire fields?	What's the biggest challenge facing Madison, and how would you address it?

Notice the specificity of the school board questions compared to the city commission questions. The school board questions probably just felt harder since I had to answer them in front of everybody. Arguably, it might be harder to come up with a focused answer to any of the open-ended questions directed at the city commission candidates.

Oh, so teachers don't get the summer off? In response to the computer question, Jay Niedert suggested we need to give teachers the summer to work some more with the Tablet PCs, get some more training, work on more ways to incorporate them into the classroom. [sarcasm] Wait a minute -- I thought teachers got to lie around all summer sipping mint julep and enjoying their massive salaries. [end sarcasm]

Madison Central Sports Board: You might have thought that was the name of the organization Jay, Tammy Jo, Paul, and I are running for, given the focus of the audience questions. Both Kevin Jaspers and Ron Barthel asked us about supporting competing gym proposals. Kevin wrapped his gym proposal in an omnibus plan to combine HS and gym renovations with a public fund drive (that last part -- a great idea!). Ron brought up his smaller plan to knock out the north wall and add 60 feet of seating now. Alas, both gentlemen used the word "need" to describe their gym visions.

Surprisingly, every candidate seemed to say the same thing: a new gym would be great, but we have to balance that idea with other educational priorities. I have yet to hear anyone make the case that expanding the gym increases educational opportunities. Paul Weist may have made the point more directly than I: the school board's main goal is education, and passing a bond issue for business benefit is not an appropriate school board action. Weist said he'd "rather see better books." There's a school board perspective if I ever heard one.

Fun exchange of the night: In my response to his gym question, I told Ron I wouldn't promise him a bond issue just to get his vote.

Ron: "Well, then I'm not gonna vote for you."
Cory: "One down, 6000 to go."

We both got laughs from the audience... and had a good face-to-face talk about the issue afterward. We agree that a big new gym project is unlikely to get voter support, and that whatever sports project bubbles up needs support from private donations and other entities besied the school board.

Now we know who's responsible: In his comments, city commission candidate Dick Ericsson noted that he "was the guy who incorporated" the Lake Area Improvement Corporation. Ah! Maybe I can get him to explain to me whether the LAIC is a public or private agency and whether it can charge $250 for access to a housing study funded by tax dollars.

Long view on natural resources: Dick Ericsson offered one of the best long-view answers on the city commission side. Talking about Madison's challenges, he acknowledged the shared concern about economic development, but he then noted that we need to look ahead at our water and power needs. I liked that answer: it looked at the bigger picture and a fundamental issue that might require every community on the prairie and elsewhere to change the way it grows and does business.

Freudian slip of the evening: City Council candidate Scott Delzer offered opening and closing statements that sounded the most like good traditional candidate speeches. He had his clear list of talking points, repeated them in both speeches to make them stick, and asked for the deal -- the vote -- multiple times (those Credit Soup guys know their marketing!).

But his closing line did elicit a murmur of amusement from the attentive crowd:

Delzer: "That's why I want to be your representative on the Madison Chamber of Commerce."

Well, President Coolidge did say "the business of America is business"... well, sort of....

Heidelberger takes the mic... to the woodshed! No fisticuffs broke out last night, but I did get a little rough with the audio equipment. While gesturing in response to a question, I managed to whack the KJAM microphone off its legs. Matt Groce (The Voice of Madison!) said he didn't hear anything go haywire. Nonetheless, I apologize to all of you out in radio land for disruption of the signal. Sorry -- talking about education just gets me excited.

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Thanks again to everyone who came and listened and asked questions! The blog is always open for more questions, so fire away!