Last night, I went to the Dayton Unit NAACP candidates forum and filmed, so you didn’t have to go. They had all 4 candidates for Dayton City Commission (Shaw and Joseph bailed on one held last week) and half the candidates for Trotwood City Council (the incumbent Mayor and 2 challengers), and the two candidates for Jefferson Township Fiscal Officer.

Full disclosure- I’ve done printing or design work for all 3 Trotwood candidates in attendance, Mayor Mary McDonald, commission challengers Denise Moore and Norman Scearce, and for Valerie Duncan.

Here’s the video:

First thing to make sure of if you’re running a candidates forum is, have at least 2 working microphones. #FAIL Or, make it easier for anyone filming- and just have one mic at a podium and make candidates all go to the same spot to talk (hopefully- you’re really smart and have a pop-up banner behind them to share your organizational message- and that the spot is well lit).

Next up, if you are going to have someone filtering the questions, at least pick good ones. Seriously, this whole “forum” format- where candidates never engage each other makes for boring theater- and never really lets people know what kind of leadership we can expect if elected. These questions weren’t softballs- they were nerf balls. Asking where your kids went to school isn’t as important as what are your qualifications and education (and criminal record).

This needs to be said, Jefferson township needs to go away. Force a merger, or let’s get unigov working. If these two are the best you can field, don’t even bother. Sorry ladies. Unimpressed at half the price. If you are curious about unigov, go to www.reconstructingdayton.org to learn about my 501(c)(4) non-profit that’s working toward getting rid of all these banana republics with their small minded, unnecessary leadership. This is about real cutting of government overhead, not what these two women were blathering about. Your “choices” are Charlene E. Chattams challenger and Tracey M. Edwards incumbent.

As to the Dayton candidates, after watching this, and knowing the track records and backstories (2 have criminal backgrounds- see Journalism 101 on investigating candidates and politicians) it will be hard to vote for any of these candidates. And since Dayton doesn’t allow write-ins, and we’ve had caught felons working as Federal snitches foisted on us before as legitimate candidates, maybe if we all sit this one out- it might serve as a referendum on city hall.

As to Trotwood, 3 candidates didn’t accidentally not show up as proffered by Mr. Foward. It was intentional that they all weren’t there. They aren’t worthy of a mention- yes, you get credit for participation.

There were only 2 surprises last night – when asked about if they support a women’s right to choose/Issue 1, all the candidates except one said yes. The reason there were two surprises is that Matt Joseph is very Catholic and sends his kids to Catholic schools and people have told me that he was against it, and Norman Scearce was the lone no.

Next Tuesday, Oct 3rd, 6pm, the NAACP will host another forum, at Grace United Methodist Church at the corner of Harvard and Salem, for school board candidates. Let’s hope more candidates show up, the questions are a little tougher and the microphone problem is solved.