Interview with Mayoral Candidate Corbin

Interview with Dan Corbin, 1430 on Sunday, April 29, 2012 at Starbucks on Trimmier Rd in Killeen. I reported Mr Corbin's answers in the third person to avoid any suggestion that I am directly quoting him.

1. Q. As mayor, what will you say to the council members and the acting city manager at the first meeting of the new Council?
   

   • A. First he will request adoption of Roberts's Rules of Order (11th ed.) until the current council "Rules of Procedure and Protocol" can be revised. He believes that the current rules, adopted in the early 2000s, discourage minority opinions; for example cloture may be invoked by a 51% vote.
   • Second, he will ask for an accelerated work schedule, with meeting on Tuesdays and Thursdays until
     • The backlog of council business is cleared, and
     • New council members are brought up to speed on issues and procedures by staff briefings and training.
   • Third, he will ask that video and audio of all council meetings be streamed if that is the will of the council. He believes that the city has technology in place to implement this as early as the first meeting of the new council.

2. Q. How are you going to get off on a good foot? There hasn't always been a good working relationship between the mayor and the council, and you have had disagreements with some of the council candidates.
   

   A. We talked a while about this, but conversationally rather than in a way I can bulletize. He said that in his work as an attorney he is used to arguing without antagonizing; and that as chair of the council he will not allow disagreement to become disruptive. He said he can and will foster a cordial and collegial environment.

3. Q. One of your opponents wants to fire the police chief. Do you want to fire anyone? Could you if you wanted to? More to the point, do you have an opinion about the executive leadership of the city departments?
   

   A. (My question was, of course, facetious and aimed at a statement by mayoral candidate Hal Bouchard in this morning's KDH.) Corbin pointed out that it is a breach of ethics and the City Charter for the mayor or council members to give direction to the City Manager in personnel matters. As to the performance of current department heads, he deferred judgement. Corbin does believe that the leadership of the city government, in the office of City Manager, needs to be settled, which led directly to the next question.

4. Q. What should the council do with regard to filling the vacant City Manager position?
   

   A. Corbin said we need to proceed carefully and would not be drawn in to speculation. He pointed out that several factors, including the recall and sequestration of DoD funds, make assuming the Killeen City Manager position a risky career move for a rising municipal executive; and perhaps a difficult one for an administrator who wants to end his or her career here.

5. Q. What guidelines will you use when called upon to chair meetings in which present or former clients may be interested? Or issues where you have been paid to advocate a position?
   

   A. Corbin said that if any of his firm's current clients were involved in business before the council, he would have to turn that portion of the meeting over to the Mayor pro tem.; but that given the nature of his practice, he does not anticipate this being a frequent occurance. His firm represents people mainly in their personal interests, and he has little or no business involving real estate, property develpment or city business.

6. Q. In the spring of 2011, you represented then-councilman Kenny Wells and advocated a position for him before the city council. If you had been mayor then, would you have allowed such a presentation?
   

   A. Yes, Corbin said, he would. The reason is that the council needs to have the best information available to make decisions, and it really doesn't matter where that information comes from.

KDH May 2012 election guide

It's here: http://assets.kdhnews.com/3dissues/special_editions/2012/issue7/index.html

Progress on interviews

I talked to Dan Corbin and Jonathan Okray today.  Tomorrow I have an appointment with Elizabeth Blackstone, and Wednesday with Ralph Cossey.

When I decided to interview my short-list candidates, I thought it would be easy.  I had a list of questions that I don't think have been answered in sufficient depth.  I'd limit the interview to six questions, get to the bottom of them, and write up the result.

The first part of the plan has gone well.  Mr Corbin and Mr Okray were both willing to sit still for the questions and answer them in some detail.  What I overlooked is that I'm probably not a good enough writer to convey the experience to you; I worry it will come out as mere sound-bites, which is not at all what I'm after.  I'll stick with the plan for now, but in two years I may have to go with a 60 Minutes-style video format.

Tonight I'll write up the interviews from this afternoon and ask the subjects to review them.  If I'm OK with their emendations, I'll publish early next week.

KDH 2012 Election Guide

The election guide is inserted in today's (Sunday, April 29) paper.  I'd give you a link to it, but the KDH web site is down.

There's not much new, but it's probably worthwhile to review what the candidates have to say.  A few have increased their depth of understanding (or at least their ability to convey it) since the forums a few weeks ago.  Juan Estrada still has a secret plan to save the city.

Nothing I read changed my mind about my short list of candidates (see last night's blog).

One trap you might fall into if you skim the candidates responses (which in some cases you will be tempted to do).  The length of the response has little to do with the content.  The questions asked by the newspaper were ones that can be answered generally or specifically.  The paper required responses be limited to 100 words.  Some candidates, apparently despairing of meeting that limit with specific answers chose to give general answers, or at least unadorned ones.  A couple of the candidates are good writers -- Dan Corbin, for one -- and were able to cram good, extensive answers into the limited space.  Others didn't try.  My own preference is for clear answers, short or long, and I was mostly satisfied with what I read from Workman, Corbin, Okray, Kott, Foster, Blackstone, Cossey and Butler.  

Drawing the line

Like many Killeenites, I've given a lot of thought to the candidates in the current municipal election.  In some cases I'm still questioning my own judgement, but I've reduced the large candidate field to a few candidates I'm still considering:

For Mayor --

•   Dan Corbin.  Dan is really the only candidate who acts like he wants the job.  (That in itself may be a disqualification.)  He is informed, articulate, sociable, presentable, widely known and liked, and in a position to devote the unpaid hours required from a Killeen mayor.
•   Billy Workman.  Billy deserves a nod because of what he has tried to do for the city.  If there is a politician in town with his heart in the right place, it is Workman.  I admit that I said he had eliminated himself after his poor performance at the Exchange Club/KDH forum, but I've reconsidered.

For At-large Council seats:

•   Jonathan Okray.  Jon did our city a big service.  He hasn't campaigned very hard, but I think he deserves serious consideration.
•   Daniel Kott.  Dr. Kott is the most intelligent man in the race, and maybe the oldest.  I have no doubt of his judgement and integrity, but I'm most enthused about his understanding of technology and how it can be applied to help people in this city better grasp what their representatives are up to.
• Ralph Cossey.  Ralph is a dynamo.  He's also smart and deeply involved in civic matters.  He has run for council (district 4) before and came close to winning.   He would be a voice for reason on the council.
• Jared Foster.  Jared is young and closely tied to the business community.  His main asset right now is his enthusiasm.  If you talk to him, you will probably want to vote for him.
• Elizabeth Blackstone.  Every governing body needs a person who can rein in enthusiasms of the moment and apply basic logic to problems.  I suspect Mrs Blackstone is such a person.
• Jim Butler.  He knows more about running the city than anyone else in the race. Because he was until his recent retirement the director of Public Works, he may be too closely tied to the existing structure.  Nonetheless, I can't ignore his deep knowledge of the city.

In the two weeks leading up to the election, I hope to interview all 8 of these candidates.  If I get a chance to do so, I will tell you about it.

Probably no politics for a day or so...

I work for a computer-chip design company in Austin.  We're creating something that will rock a portion of the industry.  Unfortunately, crunch time overlaps election season.   I'm working 12 hours a day on bring-up, with a couple of hours' commute thrown in, and as much as I enjoy blogging, I need to talk to my wife first; so my political commentary may be afterthoughts for a few days.

Glenda Turck's Letter in Today's KDH

I found a couple things to like about Ms Turck's letter in today's Killeen Daily Herald "Letters to the Editor" section. I can't find a link, so I'll quote from it here.

"Our polarized politics," she says, "is disrespectful.  Lies, half-lies and omissions ... are disrespectful."  Our local elections have been remarkably free of this kind of discourse.  Of course, our local elections have been remarkably free of content, so far.  There was some divisive rhetoric during the recall last year.  I think I can point out some statements that Glenda might have been thinking of in the public comments of Mayor Hancock, Councilman Workman, Jonathan Okray, Councilman Wells and Dan Corbin.

I can't follow Ms Turck to her conclusion.  She calls the spewers of lies, half-lies and omissions "opponents of democracy".  I call them people pursuing their own agendas.  We do have a sort of democracy in Killeen (although it's getting too big for one), and its main virtue is that it allows people to pursue their agendas.  The people looking on, and voting, have the responsibility of filtering the rhetoric, sorting out the half-truths, and filling in the omissions.

I think we did pretty well in the recall election in this regard.  If Ms Turck is suggesting that Killeen voters   are in some way incapable of recognizing the kind of behavior she calls out, I think that suggestion is itself disrespectful.

Brief notes on events

I stopped by Eric Nellis's meet-and-greet at the Community Center this evening.  Jason Lawhorn (district 1 candidate) and Steve Harris (at large candidate) were also there.

Eric is a level-headed guy, but he's going to have to get a lot of attention very quickly to build enough name recognition to contend for mayor.

Thursday through Saturday is Celebrate Killeen, which you can read about in the paper.  You're likely to see at-large candidate Ralph Cossey there, helping to run the show, but I'm sure he'll be to busy to politic. Say hello, anyway.  Ralph's worth knowing.

Next Monday, April 30, Elizabeth Blackstone, at-large candidate, is hosting a "campaign event" on the front steps of the Vive Les Arts theater (3401 south W.S. Young) from 1800 to 1900.  She is promising cookies, so I expect a crowd.

Levon: RIP

I've had trouble blogging.  I'm too bummed about Levon Helm's passing.  If you want real with a twist, try http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBuJB218UvU

I enjoyed chatting with Jared Foster last night at his meet-and-greet at Fuddrucker's.  His dad makes pretty good conversation, too.  Jared's a good candidate for city council in that he's young, energetic and bright.  He's a budding politician, trying to find out what I wanted to hear and then say it.  (If you read anything negative into that last sentence, you read it wrong.)

Part of our conversation stayed with me today.  Jared said that he thinks improving Killeen's reputation is an important goal.  I reacted badly to that.  I think that improving Killeen's reputation will be the long-term result of opening its government, reducing its crime, and eliminating its shabbiness.  Taking improvement of reputation as the immediate goal is grabbing the wrong end of the stick.  But I ran into trouble trying to explain my position to people in Austin this morning.  They said "why wouldn't you promote something like 'South by Southwest' in Killeen?  Wouldn't that contribute directly to the city's reputation?"

The difficulty, I think, stemmed from our starting points.  The Austinites began knowing that their city has a positive reputation and that it's recognized, at least by some, as a "music capital of the world".  Bringing in a SxSW was like confirming the brand.  Killeen, on the other hand, is known as a dirty place where people get robbed in their houses and kids bring guns to school. SxSW here, as welcome as it might be to us, would be paint on a pig, reputation-wise.

Much unlike Austin, Killeen needs to correct its problems and the (often overblown) reaction that residents and non-residents have to them.  What can the next Council do to promote those corrections?

• Keep the police department well-staffed and highly professional.
• Maintain and extend the sign ordinance.
• Encourage attractive housing with lots of green space, parks and recreation areas.
• Discourage squalid colonies of cheap, high density housing.
• Incubate and encourage the growth of TAMUCT.

Unfortunately, there are negative aspects to each of these, and (depending on the makeup of the next City Council) dissenting voices could well prevail.  I'm probably going to be in favor of the five measures above, and I intend to find Council candidates who support some or all of them.

Blowing the Election

There was only one thing that  could make this Killeen municipal election cycle a failure: for the candidates to be silent.  Unfortunately, for the most part that's exactly what they've done.

Frankly, I'm tired of talking about Dan Corbin, but I don't have any choice.  He's just about the only one saying anything.

The only candidate events I know about in the coming week are at-large candidate Jared Foster's meet-and-greet at Fuddrucker's tomorrow (April 23 at 1800) and mayoral candidate Eric Nellis's on Wednesday the 25th at the Community Center.

I hope candidates will believe me when I say that silence will not win the election.  Saying you're an upright citizen and unencumbered by private interests does not constitute a campaign position.  The city needs public discussion of issues like

• the city charter
• how the city should grow
• how we're going to finance our growth
• how to react to the inevitable upcoming armed forces reduction
• how to get enough water into town

I'm especially disappointed in Billy Workman, who at least started off talking about some of these things; and Eric Nellis, whom I expected to apply a young man's enthusiasm to them.

But even more disappointing than the mayoral candidates have been the candidates for at-large council seats.  I've seen 10 comments by Ralph Cossey and Daniel Kott for every one by the other 14 candidates combined.  And I can't characterize Ralph's as substantive. Most of the candidates for at-large seats don't even have web pages.

It's three weeks until the election, candidates.  You need to make some noise.

KCC/KECD Briefing

Thanks to Daniel Kott, who videotaped John Crutchfield's quarterly briefing on the activities of the Killeen Chamber of Commerce and the Killeen Economic Development Corporation.  The local newspaper largely ignored the presentation.  You won't want to watch it twice, but once probably won't hurt to much.

There has been a lot of criticism of KCC/KEDC, some of it to the point and some off the mark.  I don't think there's much doubt that these are well-run organizations that tell the city what they are going to do, and then (for the most part) do it.  I do think that the city is very bad at evaluating the return we get from funding KCC/KEDC to do those things.

In Mr. Crutchfield's presentation, he did not once mention a dollar amount, either what he had spent or what the city gained from those expenditures.  Certainly he presented a lot of details about effort, and benefits like "we learned a lot of beneficial things."  He described generating a "series of talking points."

In any one quarter, there is no shame in not generating tangible results, even if you spent $1.25 million of the city's general fund not doing so.  Economic development doesn't necessarily show results quarter-to-quarter.  Even if there is no result year-to-year, it might be OK; these aren't the best of times.  But if over 2 or 3 or 5 years we can't see a rate of return from the millions of dollars we've put into these organizations, we have to suspect we're doing it wrong.

KEDC and Glenn Morrison need to  put metrics in place to measure what tax payers are getting from the KCC and KEDC projects they are funding.  The metrics need to be concrete, along the lines of

    -- Here's what the city gave them.
    -- Here's the additional revenue the city got from that investment.
    -- Here's the additional costs the city incurred because of that investment (in terms of new infrastructure or incentives, for example).
    -- Here are the intangible benefits and the dollar value the city places on them.

Dan Corbin posted this on his facebook page.  I hope he won't mind me quoting it; it he does, I'll remove the quote.

"Pol ad by Dan Corbin. I attended the Chamber Mixer at the new Nursing Building on the CTC campus. The building is beautiful. Then Linda and I had dinner and then drove to Houston where I have a seminar on Fri about how to choose and court a jury. This is an unusual campaign because I rarely see any of my opponents on the campaign trail."ency

 If I were running against Dan, he wouldn't have seen me, either.  I didn't know about a mixer at the nursing school.  Maybe it was in the newspaper.  I read the paper pretty thoroughly, but I could have missed it.  I don't think I can blame any of the other mayoral candidates for missing it, too.

I think Dan's comment throws a strong light on the mayoral race.  Are we looking for a candidate who is tight with the Chamber and gets explicit invitations to functions like this?  Or are we looking for someone to represent a wide constituency?

I'm not prepared yet to say that these are two different persons.  Perhaps Dan Corbin can balance his insider credentials with the need to look outside that narrow constituency.  But he hasn't proven it yet, and his facebook post didn't help.

Please post here about today's council briefing

I'm still out of town, so I won't be at the council briefing this afternoon.  I'm very interested in hearing reactions from people who do attend.  If you make it, please let me know what happened and what you thought about it.

Mailing it in

I'm in San Francisco talking to some customers and probably won't be blogging much this week.  Early voting starts in a week and a half, so I'm feeling the pressure.  Candidates who care whether they are elected (and I don't think there are very many of those) are probably feeling it too.

I can't blame candidates for not pressing very hard for votes--city government is not lucrative employment or a road to political influence--but I wonder why they filed if they don't at least want to get some points across. 

Querkiness

I'm sorry I missed last night's NAACP/LULAC forum.  The KDH report was worthless.  and I don't think Dan Kott was able to capture any video.

But on a different subject....

If you follow this blog, you will have to put up with occasional quirkiness.  No more than once a month, I hope, but today's is one of those posts.

I'm reading C.V. Wedgewood's monograph on Oliver Cromwell.  (It's short, but not very useful unless you already know a lot about the subject.)  One of Cromwell's opinions that Dame Veronica highlights is (paraphrasing, now) that it is unjust and unwise to deprive a man of his natural liberty because you suspect he will abuse it; rather you should wait until he does abuse it, and judge him then.

This is interesting now because it transcends most of the political divisions people currently think are important.  Republicans and Democrats, Tea Partyers, Libertarians and Socialists all have advocates on either side of this question.

The issue in Cromwell's time was whether individuals should be allowed to worship God according to their own inclinations.  That this question has been largely settled in our own times doesn't dilute the principle.  If  I'm allowed to make my own decision on something as important as religion, why should I be restricted in any economic or social activities?  If I transgress the law, you can punish me later.

The answer is in consequences.  It's well to assume that people will do the right thing, and that there is punishment for those who do not; but who will take care of the consequences?  For example, if a builder puts up 4-plexes in an area zoned for single-family buildings, is it sufficient to fine the builder after the fact?  The 4-family units are still there.  If I put a fireworks factory in my garage, what good does it do to fine me after it blows up?  My neighbor's house still burned down.

At any level of government, it is one of the most important responsibilities of the governors to balance the "natural rights" of the governed so that liberty is maximized and consequences are minimized.  That's one reason I think the next City Council election is important.  Where do you think the candidates you favor  see the balance?  Do they even see that there is a balance?

Culling the herd

With 16 candidates vying for 3 at-large city council seats, I think everyone is looking for criteria to eliminate some of the candidates in order to concentrate on making a good choice by comparing the positions of the strongest.

The two candidate forums -- Monday's and tomorrow's -- provide the best basis for making that kind decision, but there are some obstacles in the way.  At Monday's KDH/Exchange Club forum, the questions directed to the 16 candidates were poorly chosen in that they either encouraged general answers or required far more detailed answers than the speakers were given time for.  You can see the interviews on Dan Kott's Eyes Of Killeen YouTube channel.  Tomorrow's LULAC/NAACP forum, if it continues the pattern of Wednesday's School Board/Mayor forum, will feature better questions but will not be videotaped because of the inadequate venue.

Several of the sixteen probably eliminated themselves on Monday by their inability to coherently answer even the easiest questions.  This says nothing about the people themselves, just about how they performed on stage.  The candidates I mentally eliminated based on their answers at that forum are

• Nathan Small
• Milton Powell
• Abe Amir
• JoAnn Demonbreun
• Mike Gamel

That still leaves 11 who, although they did not cover themselves in glory, at least survived my first cut.

From here on, the ante goes up. Some of my high-level elimination criteria are going to be

• Did the candidate talk about integrity and transparency when asked about policy?  I'm unlikely to favor a candidate who avoids other issues by beating on those drums.
• Did the candidate dwell on the past rather than look to the future?
• Did the candidate seem to understand fundamental concepts of city government?  Did he or she talk intelligently about finance, budgeting, borrowing, taxing, zoning, long-range planning, grants, regional govenment alliances, health insurance, fleet maintenance, buy versus lease, make versus buy....
• Does the candidate make him or herself available?  Is there a web site?  A Facebook page?

When I have the field narrowed to 6 or 7 candidates, I plan to talk to each of them.  I'll post the gist of the conversations here.

Tonight's mayoral forum

I missed it, as promised.  My wife attended and took notes for me.   Her impression of the mayoral candidates was even less positive than mine.  She said Dan Corbin gave the most thoughtful answers, but seemed to have the most conflicts of interest.  Not a bad analysis for a rookie, in my opinion.  She thought Trujillo and Carter looked pretty good for the school board race; and that Joanne Purser put her foot in her mouth.

The first two candidate forums have strengthened my belief that this is an important election.  If you think that good people will be elected whatever you do, you're wrong.  There are candidates for almost all positions, but especially for mayor and council-at-large, who ought to scare you.  There's one more forum this week: the candidates for Killeen City Council will be interviewed on Friday at 1800 (my wife said it started at 1830 tonight, so my information may be bad) at the Civic center at W.S. Young and Veterans Memorial.  I'll be there or not, depending on how it goes at work.  If you go and take notes, send them to me (bblair48@yahoo.com).  Otherwise I'll depend on Dan Kott's videos on the YouTube EyesOfKilleen channel. 

My posts may be perfunctory for a while.  There's a sprint to a deadline at work, and I'll be travelling on business soon.

When life interferes with politics...

I'm skipping the  NAACP/LULAC mayoral candidate forum tomorrow night.  The reason is that I have revenue-producing work to do for my company that will prevent me from attending.

I'm not as concerned about it as I might have been before Monday's KDH/Exchange Club Forum, though.  At that event, three of the mayoral candidates -- Estrada, Butchart and Workman -- disqualified themselves by their failure to coherently answer even the softball questions.  Workman I know is an intelligent man, but you would never suspect it to hear him speak in public.  Butchart is (I'm sorry to say it) a blowhard.  Estrada was the biggest disappointment to me because I thought he might act a "senior councillor" role; but his nonsense about a secret plan to cut the budget by 20% -- which he'll only announce after he's elected -- put and end to that hope.

So what's left is Nellis and Corbin, both of whom have some strengths and weaknesses which will be the subject of a future post.

If anyone attends the NAACP/LULAC event (or attended last night's) and sees (saw) something different, please leave a comment here.

A Teaser from the Exchange Club/KDH Forum

It's too late and I have too many notes to write anything substantial tonight about the Exchange Club/KDH candidate forum.  Here are a few fun facts:

• There were a lot of candidates there.  Of the 26 candidates, only Wayne Gilmore (district 1 council candidate) was absent.  Even though none got to speak long, the forum still went almost 3.5 hours,
• There were a lot of people in the audience.  I didn't get a count, but I'm guessing it was over 300.  That's unheard of .  I wish they'd got their money's worth
• Predictably, there was more talking than thinking.  One example:  the mayoral candidates were asked how they would reduce the debt.  Not a one of them said "Uh, we're not going to reduce the debt; Killeen's growing fast, and we'll be accumulating debt for some time to finance new infrastructure."  I'll publish the actual answers later from my notes, but trust me, they were wrong.

See you at the candidate forum tomorrow

There are three good reasons you should be at the Killeen Civic and Conference Center, 3601 south W.S. Young, tomorrow (April 9) at 1800.  That's where the Exchange Club and the Daily Herald will sponsor the first big candidate forum of 2012.

First, it's going to be the most entertaining event you've attended since last year's wild town meeting.  You'll see candidates put feet in their mouths and be unable to remove them; you'll hear people you don't know much about make some reasonable-sounding proposals; there will be arguments and, if we're lucky, no fights or forced ejections.  You would pay good money for this much entertainment, and it's free.


Second, the moderator (a local newspaper editor) will ask the candidates questions you want to know their answers to.  A list of questions already collected is on the front page of the Sunday paper.  You can still suggest a question by showing up early and filling in a card.

Third, the moderator will not ask the candidates questions you want to know their answers to.  But the candidates will all be there and you'll have a chance to ask at least some of those questions face-to-face.

There are a couple of dozen more good reasons for you to be there, but these should be enough.

Three forums next week, not just two

Dan Corbin tells me that due to the number of candidates (and, dare we hope, level of interest?) the candidate forum sponsored by LULAC and the NAACP will be held on two session, Wednesday and Friday.

Both events begin at 1800 at the Civic Center, at the intersection of W.S. Young and Veterans Memorial (Business 190). On Wednesday the candidates for mayor and school board will be there.  Friday is for city council candidates.  Both are worth attending.

Election frenzy approaching

On Good Friday, I should post about my religion, which teaches me hope; my family, which teaches me love; my work, which gives me satisfaction; and my friends, who give me joy.  Nonetheless, I'll post about next week's election activities which are of less pertinent, but perhaps more general, interest.

The week of April 9 is a key to the May 12 city election.  Monday, April 9, the Exchange Club and the Killeen Daily Herald will host a candidate forum at the Killeen Civic and Conference Center.  It will begin at 1800 and run to 2100.  The Exchange Club is hopelessly clueless when it comes to publicizing their events.  Here's the KDH blurb:


A "Meet the Candidates" forum will be from 6 to 9 p.m. Monday at the Killeen Civic and Conference Center. The forum will feature the 16 at-large Killeen council candidates, the five district council candidates and the five mayoral candidates. 

Questions for the candidates can be submitted by email to news@kdhnews.com, or filled out on a card at the forum. Moderators will read the questions to the candidates. The forum is sponsored by the Killeen Daily Herald and the Killeen Exchange Club.

Later in the week, on Friday, April 13,  LULAC and the NAACP will sponsor a forum at the Community Center  at the intersection of W.S. Young and Veterans Memorial Drive.

I strongly encourage anyone with even a passing interest in Killeen city government to attend both forums.  Here are things I think you will get in return for your effort:

1. Face time with candidates.  You should look a man or woman in the eye before you vote for or against him or her.
2. Some lively exchanges.  This is not your grandfather's election.  Or, rather, it's more like your grandfather's election than it is like more recent ones.  There are real issues in this election.  The candidates have not been eager to discuss these issues so far, but real discussion is likely to break out at any moment.
3. A chance to ask questions.  If you don't have questions for the 26 candidates, you are not paying attention.  Every candidate has left open countless questions about his or her views on city government, finance, ethics, growth, urban renewal and a host of other issues.  You get two chances to get their answers.  I certainly plan to pester them.

Please take time to show up Monday, April 9 and Friday, April 13.  Your city needs you there.

Steve Harris

At Large candidate Steve Harris's YNN interview is a little different because he's the only candidate in the segment.  If it were me, I would have presented all the interviews this way; the pairings YNN did were artificial and for the most part misleading (see below).

Harris seems to be running on the popular notion that builders and real estate developers have had a disproportional influence on city government.  It's hard to go wrong with that theme.  I tried to find something to say about his comment that developers should "not just think about money;" but he's right.  I hold no hope that his position will prevail among that community, but I don't blame Steve for trying.

Because this is the last of the videos about at-large city council candidates, it's probably OK to comment on YNN's "parallel candidates" style of presentation.  For the most part, I don't think it works.  For one thing, the videos are far too short to develop comparisons and contrasts at more than a superficial level.  There might have been some value in pairing candidates responses to substantive questions, but as near as I could tell, YNN did not ask any substantive questions.  If the purpose of this series was to allow candidates to have their pictures on TV and deliver a couple of sound-bites, then YNN could just as well have had individual segments or put all 16 (15 if Nate Small still didn't want to participate) candidates in one segment.

I don't want to discourage YNN: they've had better election coverage than any other medium; much better than their print competitors.  But there's so much more that should be done.  I'd like to see YNN (or someone) offer 20 minutes of video to any candidate who wants to take advantage of it.  I'd also like to see other formats, but maybe some of them will be covered by the upcoming  candidate forums.  Those forums will be the subject of tomorrow's blog.

Blackstone-Manning

The YNN interviews with Elizabeth Blackstone and Mike Manning, at-large candidates for Killeen City Council, may have been the first ones broadcast.  If so, it was a good choice because of the contrast.  Mrs. Blackstone says that the council needs fresh blood; Manning says it needs an old hand.

Neither candidate makes a convincing argument -- to be fair, they didn't have time to do so -- but is the distinction between "new blood" and "government experience" really a defining issue?  I'm going to argue "no".  It's far more important how much time a city council member is going to spend understanding the issues before him or her.  I'm more interested in the diligence and public spirit that will inform that understanding than procedural experience or lack thereof.  If these two candidates are equally able and willing to study and consider the issues before them, their prior experience (or not) is of little consequence.

If Elizabeth Blackstone is elected, I hope she brings cookies.

Republicans and Democrats

A few (I'm grateful it's a very few) local candidates have tentatively broached their affiliation with national political parties.  They are of course free to associate with whomever they wish, but public endorsement of  the national Republican or Democrat party is, as far as I'm concerned, an indication that the candidate is not sufficiently independent to serve the city.  I'm unlikely to support any candidate who tries to divert attention from local issues by invoking the empty rhetoric of the national political parties.

There are good reasons we have nonpartisan elections for city government.  First among them is that we have real matters to discuss, concrete interests to balance, and issues to deal with that are under our control.  There is no need here for the absurd, contorted positions that Republicans and Democrats assume in the media.  We don't have to be polluted by the obscene amounts of money that corporations and special interests use to subvert rational debate.

If you are a candidate and you think I will be impressed because you belong to one of those parties, or hang out with people who are funded by them, you are wrong.  Rather the opposite, actually.

+1 for the KDH editorial today

I had a not-very-clever April Fool blog planned, but it is preempted by my need to praise the Killeen Daily Herald and its editorial today.

One of the most important things a local newspaper can do is to focus attention on local problems and issues.  Over the 30+ years I've been reading it, KDH has rarely done this.  Today they broke the pattern. The editorial points out what people (including but certainly not limited to me) have been saying about the nearly automatic grants the city has traditionally given to third parties:  that there needs to be some accountability.

I find this exciting.  I hope for more such editorials (and I don't care if I disagree with them: I'll welcome arguing them in either case).

Dare we dream of a day when the local daily newspaper prints more than one non-syndicated editorial a week?