LWV and WakeUp’s Candidate Forum

The Real Estate Question

Thanks to the League of Women Voters and WakeUp who put on the candidate forum last night. About 100 people showed up at the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, mostly an audience of senior citizens but with sprinklings of other age groups.  Thomas Craven, Nancy McFarlane, Questions were asked in turn to each district with the at-large candidates being split into two groups.  Paul Anderson, Will Best, and Russ Stephenson were in one group and Helen Tart, David Williams and Mary Ann Baldwin were in another. 

The first set of moderator questions as well as the candidate’s initial introductions focused around Impact fees.  Most of the candidates said they did support them while Craven, Menendez, and Williams did not.  Taliaferro, an incumbent who claimed to have whole heartedly supported them is largely considered to only support them in a capacity enough to pacify her constituents. As our reader Ann described:

Jessie can claim to have voted for higher impact fees, while she actually voted NOT to raise them enough to make any real difference in who pays for growth.

The final audience question was something to the effect of “Have you received money from Real-Estate or Real-Estate PAC’s?” originally directed at the first half of the at-large candidates.  It was obvious this was a top-of-mind issue and it sparked the audience to ask for the same question to be asked of the second group. Most of the Candidates said that they had no knowledge of real-estate or developers contributing to their campaign.  Both Anderson and Baldwin said they had received Real-Estate Money.  Baldwin was awkward in her explanation that her real-estate contributors were ‘proportional’ and that her campaign finance report revealed this.  New Raleigh will be following up with that report as soon as possible. 

The candidates answers to that question, below:

I have video content from last night but it will be this weekend before I get it up.  WakeUp was intrigued by the suggestion that they should publish the video on the web. Figuring the cable RTN rebroadcast would reach the right audience.  I was encouraging them to do so as so much of the relevant population does not have a cable subscription but does have high speed internet.  Much like the way many of the younger generations are excluded from telephone polls because of their lack of traditional telephone lines- local politics is slow to adapt to the modern world.

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