Northeast Neighborhood Groups Quality of Life Candidate Debate/Forum

The purpose of the northeast neighborhood organizing and conducting a candidates night was to lay foundation for voters to both become informed related to positions held by both Mayoral and City Council candidates in relationship to  both quality of life and resource funding for the northeast quadrant.  The premise put forth by community members throughout the northeast is that this area has greater and more serious needs and therefore requires greater allocation of resources and accountability by elected officials. The two key focus questions for the candidates night were Citizen Input and Equitable Funding and Accountability to the public. .The objective is to assure candidates will deliver a commitment for greater and therefore more equitable funding with the inherent agreement to provide citizen accountability including  methods to assure citizen participation in  all budget decisions, system accountability in the delivery of services and transparency.         

Who: Rochester, NY City Council, Mayoral and School Board Candidates

What: Northeast Neighborhood Groups Quality of Life Candidate Debate/Forum

Where: Rochester Academy Charter School
901 Portland Avenue, Rochester, NY

When: October 29th, 2013
6:30PM-8:30PM

The format for the mayoral candidates and city council candidates was as follows:

Mayoral candidate debate format with rebuttal.

City Council candidates traditional forum style.

The following list is for candidates who attended the October 29 event:

Mayor: Alex White & Lovely Warren.
Lovely Warren was not able to attend until later in the debate, after about one hour of the debate had concluded.

City Council candidates were Dorothy Paige & Drew Langdon.

Candidates who made a brief statement included Ron Hall running for school board and Dana Miller, City Council member who was not able to stay. Dana Miller made a brief statement and then departed.

City Council candidates that were absent were:
Loretta Scott
Carolee Conklin
Matt Haag
Marlowe Washington
Dave Atias

There were two rounds of questions and the questions were the same.

The city council candidates each received 3 minutes each to respond to the two questions:

Question 1: "Citizen Input":
1) Besides education, do you think there are any aspects of the budget that are off-limits to citizen input?

2) What types of budget decisions will be open for citizen input?

3) What percentage of these budget items is open for citizen input?

4) How much weight will citizen input play in the budget making process?

5) What process will be used to gather citizen input?

Question 2: "Equitable funding and accountability to the public. Please touch on these points."
1) Will you institute city department spending reporting and budget projections by quadrant?

2)  Everybody agrees that quadrants with more serious needs should get more resources on those issues. What role would citizens play in determining process?

3) If extra funding is given for neighborhood service centers, rec centers, police etc, what would be done with the extra funding?  For example: Training, Extra personnel, system upgrades, youth interns?

4)How wold you involve citizens in holding the holding the system accountable in terms of creating measures of success and performance for city services? Without violating civil service laws and union contracts, how could you involve citizens in providing input on personnel performance?

We came here tonight to hear about ideas for the future of Rochester and put grassroots democracy in action. Let's keep up the momentum and make sure to vote on November 5!