Some thoughts about today’s Danville City Council forum

The five candidates for City Council got together today at Danville’s Liberty Hill Baptist Church for a forum sponsored by the Danville Ministerial Alliance. Let’s go to some random thoughts…

• It takes a lot of time to run for City Council. This was the third “forum” in a seven-day period.
• This type of informal get-together seemed to bring out relaxed attitudes in the candidates.
• This debate is formatted so that the participants have no idea of the questions. To me, this keeps the debate lively.
• I’m disappointed at the low audience turnout but since we’re recording this on Star News, this forum will get lots of viewers. The candidates know this and are taking the time to craft their answers carefully.
• Star News is here (of course), but where is the other media? There’s nobody here from the Register & Bee, WBTM/WAKG or the other TV stations. Very interesting & disappointing, because this forum is much more lively than the others. Shame on the others for not covering this event.
• There’s a lot more energy at this forum than at the Chamber’s breakfast forum, but I’m guessing that energy goes up once you get past 8 AM. 🙂

Now let’s get to what went on. All of the candidates did a very good job answering the wide variety of questions. Gary Miller & Adam Tomer continue to stand out as the incumbents and Alonzo Jones & John Gilstrap hold steady as worthy challengers. Thomas Motley quite frankly surprised me with his demeanor and answers today, and I believe he’s now a candidate that has a chance of being elected. Some of his proposals still have a 0% chance of being enacted, however. If he dumps those ideas and continues to have positions on other issues besides Danville Utilities, the other candidates will have to work a lot harder.

15 days to go before the May 4th election. We’ll have another City Council Race update on Tuesday night here on SouthsideCentral.