The five Democrats vying for the three available seats on City Council held their first forum a couple of nights ago, and Charlottesville Tomorrow provides audio and video from the debates. The format was pretty interesting: speed-dating style small group discussions followed by the usual answering questions from the audience.
Here’s excerpts of the candidates’ comments on the topic of growth in the small group discussions (45 minutes):
And here’s the audio of the panel discussion: (50 minutes):
Three more debates are planned. Here’s hoping that the format and atmosphere of each of these remains as interesting and collegial as this first one — it’s a lot better than the format that’s been used by local Democrats for some years now.
To those candidates wearing an eco-friendly mask:
You cannot both be “green” and for the Meadowcreek Parkway, a project which epitomizes planning (and paying)
for endless sprawl.
You cannot be for a world class transit system and this road. The Parkway would waste years of the city’s acclumulated transportation funds to subsidize auto-centric growth in the county while turning Charlottesville into a traffic sacrifice zone. This money is needed to make Charlottesville a place one can easily get around with out a car. Please do not claim to be ägainst global warming while pushing us to burn more oil.
Jennifer McKeever and Holly Edwards are the only true progressives in this race.