Two Rights Often Equal A U-Turn

First and foremost, tonight is the NFIA candidates' forum at the Middle School.  I heard it is going to be broadcast live.  If so, tune in at 7:00 channel 18 (but check).  Better yet, attend in person.  This is make or break night, I would think.

You may recall I stated in a post some time ago that by the second debate someone would shoot themselves it the foot.  Well this will be the third one, and that hasn't happened yet.  In my defense though, I wasn't aware of the Fairhaven Business Association Breakfast forum.  It was a good start for an introduction, but nothing challenging from a demand on the candidates' talents.  Plus it was limited to the selectman's race.

No predictions for tonight as to that happening. The candidate's for selectman have two public presentations under their belt.  So the nerve factor should be subsiding.  The candidates for the other offices seemed to handle themselves fairly well.

In all the races, while there appear to be a few who presented better than the others, like I said no one hit a home run (no strikeouts either though).  a few fielding errors, but nothing that caused anyone the game at this point.

In the future, I think the Business Association forum will be a good one.  It was a first attempt, small in scope but professionally done.  Seems like at this point they have some people on the ball, and hey in the end it is their private forum.

The government access forum, which admittedly I have missed over the last several years, needs to be better planned.  Just an opinion, and since I don't have to run it, it is easy to throw stones.  But I am not aware of anybody who would give the format a "A" , and a "B" might be a bit high.

For tonight, while I don't have all the particulars, I understand the format is going to be different than the candidates have experienced.  There are suppose to be time limits, and I hope they are enforced.   Candidates will have to modify the unlimited or near unlimited time they have been able to take to this point.

We should be hearing some real hard questions.  If people hold true to what they have been saying, I think all the candidates for selectman are going to face at least one tough question, as will several in the other races.  Time will tell.

But you know what, that is the only way you can separate the wheat from the chaff.  Tough questions, and the answers to them.

One thing I hope someone brings up tonight, not only for the selectman candidates, but also the school committee candidates.  Where do you stand on the school budget?  Everyone needs to know the answer to this question.  Do you support the requested budget?  Do you support "level funding"?  Are you somewhere in between?

I realize there will be other questions regarding the hot topics.  Would be interested in hearing from the school committee and selectman candidates on their positions covering the never ending issue of whether to build the new Wood Elementary School.  The grapevine has it that the attempts to turn back this one have not ended.  

We can certainly expect questions related to the turbines.

It would also be nice to know where everyone stands on the concept of a charter commission.  I have been fairly quiet on the topic lately.  Been doing a lot of thinking about the topic myself.

Not because I am having second thoughts.  Rather, my thoughts lately just affirm my conviction that this is absolutely needed.  

Remember that nut I talked about yesterday, still can't shake the fact that it shouldn't be that hard to crack.  Neither should you have to use a five pound sledge hammer to open it up.

The problem, as with most problems, is the fact that there are those with differing opinions and different priorities on how to crack it.  Inherent with that is trying to understand the rationale behind the same.  It seems as each day passes, things make less and less sense. 

There are just a few things left that keep me going in this whole process.  The candle has been burning for a long time, and there isn't a lot of wax left to burn.  Still enough for the immediate future however.

A recent addition to that very small list is the fact that a charter commission seems like a real possibility.  It is indeed time to be looking at what needs to be changed, what doesn't, and how to get things back into perspective, if not for everyone, hopefully for a very strong majority of people.

Change.  Exactly what will change is yet to be decided, but by the simple fact there will be new bodies sitting in some meeting chairs very soon, it is going to happen.

I am going to leave you all with a quote today, one of my favorite. It is also one that usually means entirely different things to different people.  I just suggest to everyone, that the standard does indeed apply to everyone, no matter what side of the coin you happen to be on.

"Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do." - Potter Stewart