Candidates Square Off

I was unable to attend last night's candidates forum at St Martin in the Fields Episcopal Church sponsored by The Ashford Alliance Community Association. However, fellow bloggers John Heneghan and Rick Callihan were there and both have great recaps on their blogsites (click on their names to read, or the case of John's site - listen).

All candidates for our state senate seat, being vacated by Dan Weber, and state representative seat, being vacated by Fran Miller, were in attendance, save for Fran.

In his recap, Rick says that this was likely the only chance to hear the candidates speak, since the Dunwoody Homeowners Association has no interest in sponsoring a forum. As a member of the DHA board I will tell you that a forum has not been discussed. However, I will bring it up at the next meeting (albeit, it is likely too late to host one before the primary on July 20). I feel it is important that we, as voters, educate ourselves as much as possible.

Rick brings up the point that the DHA doesn't want a forum because it doesn't work to Fran Millar's benefit. While many members of the board likely back Millar for all his done for the community, and while a forum might not work to his advantage (typically, a forum or debate doesn't help the front-runner as much), Rick's assertion is not correct. At least not to my knowledge. Nonetheless, Rick has a great recap - definitely worth reading.

Tom Taylor

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Concerning the race for state representative between Tom Taylor and Tammy Anderson, Tom sent me the email below. I feel Tom has a valid point, but agree with John blogging Tammy's answers.

Friends,

John Heneghan published a piece on his blog Wednesday morning. It lists Tammy Anderson's responses to the League of Women Voters questionnaire sent to all candidates, where the deadline for answers to policy issues was June 7th, to be published on the 10th. Those of us who answered it, answered all questions without the benefit of seeing our opponents answers and all of those were published at the same time for fairness and so voters could look at candid answers. To be candid, John publishes all of this in a spirit of being an open forum.With Tammy being the only woman in the race, it was disappointing to me that Tammy did not respond to the LWV survey, so that people could compare policy positions in a frank and open way. Tammy never responded to the OFFICIAL LVW survey. Today, with the advantage of having 2 1/2 weeks to study ALL of the of the candidate responses, Tammy submitted an extremely well-crafted response. For those of you in business, would it not be great to have all of your competitors submit bids, have them opened and published...then having 16 more days to submit yours?

If any of my friends and supporters think that this should be pointed out, please say so on John's blog: http://dunwoodynorth.blogspot.com/

Thanks again for your support.

Tom