In brief: Candidates for “our” School Board position and (almost) all the candidates for City Council and Mayor will attend.
Candidates will give a brief introduction, be asked audience questions “drawn from the hat”, and in a final “lightning round” asked brief question about our community (written 1 or 2 word answers) . You’ll be able to grab candidates before/afterwards and ask them your burning question.
To submit Lightning Round questions, go to: http://tinyurl.com/lightning-round
When: Monday July 27th, 6 – 9 PM
Location: Mount Zion Baptist Church, 1634 – 19th Avenue (on 19th Ave. & Madison). Ample parking. Buses: 11 and 12 go right past, buses 8, 10, 43, 48 within a few blocks. Enter from the Madison Street / 20th Ave parking lot: door in the corner.
There’s more: candidates, Seattle Disposable Shopping Bag Referendum (pro/con), community groups will staff information tables.
See the attached flyers for details. Please print/distribute flyers to neighbors.
Volunteers to help run the event are needed: E-mail Andrew Taylor ([email protected]) or turn up at Mt. Zion anytime after 5:15.
Schedule: 6:00 Start: 5 minutes Welcome (Pastor), 5 minutes intro etc.
1) 6:10 School Board position 5: Cullen, Helmstetter, Bass, Smith-Blum
2) 6:35 Council position 2: Conlin, (Ginsberg can’t attend)
3) 6:50 Council position 6: Kaplan, Licata, Israel
4) 7:10 Council position 4: Bagshaw, Tobin, Carver, Plants, Bloom
5) 7:35: Council position 8: O’Brien, Williams, Forch, Miller, Royer, Rosencrantz
6) 8:05 Mayor: McGinn, Donaldson, Nickels, Mallahan, Garrett, Drago, Campbell, Sigler
7) 9:00. Thanks. Disband.
Questions: people are given color-coded postcards to write questions as they arrive: one card per race per person. Questions are 12 words or fewer. Questions go into separate boxes for each race. The moderator draws and reads each question: probably 3 questions per race.
Candidates will be seated and speak in the order that they will appear on the King County ballot (http://tinyurl.com/lmswx3).
Event is co-sponsored by many neighborhood groups (see flyer for details) and underwritten by CHS Capitol Hill Seattle.
I would really like to see the moderator or assistant(s) write answers that candidates provide — *especially* when the question requires a yes/no answer — on a big board as they are answered, making it very obvious when candidates fail to answer the question, and possibly giving them a chance to confirm the accuracy of the recorded answer while they still have the floor. When political candidates are asked such questions, then go on and on without ever answering, I’m often left wishing that the microphone was cut off, they were handed a pen and slip of paper with “yes” and “no” boxes, then asked to check one of them.
Even a question that requires a more detailed response, it’s easy for a skilled speaker who would prefer not to answer that question to ramble on until most of the audience have forgotten what the question was, but have heard something that sounds generally positive, and chalk it up mentally as a win for the speaker. It would be nice to avoid allowing such tricks.