Annapolis Capital Punishment

The 100,000th visit to the leading blog in Annapolis will take place within the week and we are celebrating by hosting a mayoral debate. You are invited!

Tuesday July 28
7-9 PM
Calvary United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall (lower level)
301 Rowe Boulevard
(We ask for a donation of $1 per person to cover room rental, expenses and a donation to the church)

This will not be another one of those vanilla, talking-head forums. This will be a quasi-debate, but without rigid structure, more like a Sunday morning political talk show. Written questions from the audience that are pertinent to the two agenda topics will be accepted until 7:15. The complete format will be provided at the end of this post.

All candidates have been invited and the most active and leading candidates will attend including Josh Cohen, Zina Pierre, Chris Fox, Trudy McFall, Sam Shropshire and Gil Renaut. The likely Republican nominee Dave Cordle has been invited personally and repeatedly but has refused to respond except through his campaign manager who said the campaign has a previous commitment. He did not answer what that was when asked. I have called and/or written to his campaign manager and supporters asking them to urge Mr. Cordle to reconsider but he has not yet responded.

NOTE TO ALDERMAN CORDLE and especially to registered Republicans: Dave-We are urging your participation because we recognize your status in this race and out of respect to the thousands of Republicans in Annapolis. You are effectively shutting them out by not participating. CP believes it is appropriate to expect a reply from an elected official running for higher office. If you want our vote, we request your presence. Please contact Mr. Cordle at troops6@comcast.net, dave@davecordle.com, or aldcordle@annapolis.gov and urge him to attend. By ignoring our requests, you are sending a strong and very public message about which we the people can only speculate as to why. We've already given up on the two or three other candidates, but they are not likely going to be their party's nominee. If we did not think your presence was important, we would not be bothering. The ball is in your court.

And now the format for the evening:

1900 to 1910
CP will welcome and introduce the candidates, explain the format for the evening. CP will ask audience members to submit brief questions in writing about the two general topics for the evening.

The topics will be:

1. Overall philosophy of job of mayor, management goals and plans to balance budget, control spending, the city manager proposal and the tax cap proposal--do you favor them and why or why not? This could also include the future of the Market House or even annexation as it relates to management and budget.

2. Vision for reducing automobile traffic and congestion, improving the management and oversight of our bus system, cooperation with the state and county, role of the Transportation Board, how to improve bicycling, consideration of reducing parking, holding car-free days or closing some streets to cars, and long term policies about parking

CP will begin by focusing on Item 1 and asking a question to begin the debate. We will have until 2000 or 8 pm to debate. There will be no rigid time limits, but CP will moderate, much like a traditional Sunday morning news program and will use discretion to ask candidates to summarize or conclude. I will strive to be fair and balanced toward all, but unless we stick to a rigid and formal format, this is the way it will be. I will entertain written audience questions after the first question has been debated. If the debate has played out before 8 we shall move on to topic 2.

At 2000 we will move on and I will begin by focusing on Item 2 and asking a question to begin the debate in the same format as above. We will have until 2045 or 8:45 pm to conclude this debate.

2045 Each candidate will have up to two minutes to make a concluding remark.

2055 I will conclude the evening and announce plans for everyone to go out and celebrate!

Let us build democracy and citizen participation as we celebrate the role that Capital Punishment has played in advancing citizen participation in our local government...and please don't forget to contact the good alderman because from our perspective, he has gone AWOL.

Please send comments, subscribe, share with your friends, and support our sponsors. Join us every Thursday morning from 8-9 am for our Sip N' Blogs held in local coffee shops...except for that one in Eastport we used to patronize...ahhhh choo!.