The Candidates Debate 0

Well, not exactly.

The candidates for Virginia Beach City Council forumed participated in a forum on Thursday.

Each candidate had five minutes for an introduction. Then there was time for two questions selected from questions submitted to the moderator via Facebook, one on light rail and one on the City Council’s use of school board funds for the general fund in the current budget.

At the end, each candidate got a minute for a final statement.

I attended primarily to support Andrew Jackson, who made these major points.

He opened by saying that this election should be a defining moment, that Virginia Beach must decide where it wants to go and what it wants to accomplish; only by defining that can the city then decide what it must do to get there. He promised that voters would know him by his actions, “not by advertising,” and committed to represent and work for the people of Virginia Beach.

He pointed out that this is one of the most diverse cities in the Commonwealth and that that diversity should be embraced in unity of purpose for the city as a whole.

(Having spent the last three decades in the Philadephia/Wilmington area and traveled for work throughout the country, I can testify that day-to-day life in Virginia Beach is far more diverse than day-to-day life in a big Northern city.)

In response to the question about light rail, all the candidates referred to a study that is due next year. Some complained that light rail would require subsidies; several supported putting light rail to referendum once again. No one supported it outright.*

Andrew pointed out that one thing is definitely true: The area needs improved transportation infrastructure and that any transportation improvements would have to be subsidized in some way. The issue is not subsidies; the issue is the most effective use of the subsidy dollars in terms of the big picture.

As regard the school budget issue, most of the candidates, except the incumbents who voted for moving school board reserves into the city general funds, expressed concerns about the level of communication and cooperation between the school board and city council.

I’m no expert at estimating crowds, but I would guess that between 100 and 150 persons were present. It’s the first event of this nature that I have attended anywhere, but I was told that it was a pretty good turnout for this type of event for a local election.

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*Having lived in and visited metropolitan areas with adequate public transportation, I’ve seen how important it can be to an area.

I support public transportation outright.

At the same time, the management of this project so far seems to have left a lot to be desired. But I haven’t stopped liking baseball because Roger Clemens might be a jerk.

An earlier version of this post was published here.