Friday, October 21, 2011

Forums

Or fora if you are a Latin purist. There have been three forums so far and two to go. I will comment briefly in reverse chronological order.

First, the remaining forums. Tomorrow, the Chinese School of Chapel Hill will have a forum at 4 PM at McDougle Middle School. Then on Wednesday, October 26, at 7 PM there will be a forum at Lake Hogan Farms sponsored by the Lake Hogan Farms precinct of the Orange County Democratic Party.

The forum at Carol Woods was held Tuesday October 11, 2011, in the afternoon. As in the past, it was well attended and the questions were thought provoking. I do not think there is a record of that forum.

There was an online forum at Orange Politics conducted October 9 that can be read here.

The first forum of the season was held Wednesday September 28 at Chapel Hill Town Hall and was jointly sponsored by the PTA Council, NAACP, and PAGE. It was carried live on community cable and rebroadcast on cable and WCHL radio. It is also available online here. There is also a live blog of this forum on Orange Politics if you only have time for brief notes though I think watching the video will give better insight into the candidates. It was good to see these three organizations working together to organize a candidate forum.

As always, feel free to shoot me an email if there is something on your mind about our schools.

Changes to the original slate of candidates

There have been two changes to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School Board election since the filing period ended back in July. First, it was discovered that the two years remaining on the term of one seat (created by a resignation over a year ago) would be filled not by a separate selection for which Jamezetta Bedford was the only candidate but would be filled by the fifth place finisher for all five open seats (four 4-year term seats and one 2-year term seat). That is, voters have up to five votes to cast among all the candidates. This same situation occurred in 1995 (Nick Didow came in fifth; he ended up serving 10 years total).

The second change is that Brian Bower has officially dropped out of the race. Although his name is already printed on the ballots, any vote cast for him will not be counter, according to Orange County Board of Elections.

Early Voting began yesterday and it is 5 out of 7. The four candidates receiving the greatest number of votes will be seated to four year terms and the fifth place will have a two year term.

Endorsed by Independent

I have been endorsed for re-election by the Independent. Read all about it here.