Of the 12 registered candidates, the following 9 showed up for the 8PM Wed Sept 29 debate:
Bailao, Ana
Beaulieu, Kevin
Carroll, Doug
de Jong, Frank
Le, Nha
MacDonald, Joe
Russell, Kirk
Vyas, Hema
Wood, Ken
Being given only 90 seconds for an introduction and 30 seconds for a close makes it pretty hard for a candidate to get all their platform in - but most did an admirable job.
Dale Goldhawk, the moderator, was his usual affable self - yet kept everyone on point.
Call in questions were about:
- Lack of consultation in the ward by 'soon-to-be-former' incumbent Adam Giambrone, who was criticized for poor judgement and his related effect on his former campaign manager, executive assistant and current candidate Kevin Beaulieu. Some real fireworks here - and a coincidence? *
- Ana Bailao's ties to the developers and support from outside the ward plus a demand for her to reveal donor list one week before the election was extended by Mr Goldhawk to everyone who promised a big unanimous YES.
- What will candidates do about development in the ward, Dundas West parking mentioned
- Who do each of the candidates support for Mayor. 4 answered Joe Pantalone, many avoided answering and I (Ken Wood) promised to post it on my ward18.ca website one week before the election. As Dale noted, it was a fair question for voters to ask.
In responding to questions, Joe MacDonald managed to do a bit of a pitbull attack on at least three competitors: Ana Bailao, Kevin Beaulieu and Hema Vyas for their ties to parties and the mistakes of the past, and for shopping around for a ward to run in (Hema lives in ward14 he pointed out).
I hope a lot of ward 18 voters tuned in because it was a great (if too short) one stop shopping for city councillor. Weblink for the show: http://www.rogerstv.com/page.aspx?lid=12&rid=16&sid=3614&dat=9/29/2010 If you are a Rogers subscriber you can see it online.
I may post more as I remember it and hope someone has live-streamed it or taped it)
* Coincidentally (Adam) Giambrone criticized for $15,000 TTC Promo Video as waste of taxpayers' money for self-aggrandizing: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/ttc/article/868219--giambrone-criticized-for-15-000-ttc-promo-video Video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1emO_zZTHAk This is the Toronto Sun article:
This raise two important questions:1. "The $15,000 for the report and video - which was written with TTC staff input but generated by the chairman's office (Giambrone) - will come out of "various councillors' budgets" ? ... Which councillors? - the left wing Millerites? Why should it be out of councillors' local ward budgets? And why DOES this out of the ordinary report prominently figure Mr. Giambrone? - building name recognition for what?
2. "The councillor ... brushed off suggestions he was fact-checking the current mayoral candidates"... What give Mr Giambrone the right to in my view so blatantly campaign for Mr Pantalone's view of the TTC using city taxpayers' money?
