{"id":1182,"date":"2016-04-18T23:12:03","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T04:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/truthinaddison.com\/?page_id=1182"},"modified":"2016-04-18T23:12:57","modified_gmt":"2016-04-19T04:12:57","slug":"another-desperate-attempt-to-rewrite-history-this-forum-is-still-theater","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/truthinaddison.com\/?page_id=1182","title":{"rendered":"Another Desperate Attempt to Rewrite History This \u201cForum\u201d is STILL Theater"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another Desperate Attempt to Rewrite History:
\n<\/strong>This \u201cForum\u201d is STILL Theater
\n<\/strong>By Susan M. Halpern
\n<\/strong>Former Addison Councilmember (1992-1999)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

My goodness, but these folks are desperate to convince voters that this \u201cforum\u201d event is something other than theater.\u00a0 I stand by everything I\u2019ve said about it.\u00a0 My comments are not false, and they\u2019re certainly not \u201cinnuendo.\u201d\u00a0 In fact, I\u2019ve been very direct.\u00a0 But, let\u2019s talk about it a little more\u2026.<\/p>\n

They still won\u2019t tell you who is behind the event.\u00a0 <\/strong>It\u2019s true that Bob Heckman met with Paul Walden, Jim Duffy and Al Angell, but Heckman couldn\u2019t answer the most basic of questions about the event.\u00a0 Jim Duffy asked Heckman directly who was organizing the event, who the sponsors were, who picked the format, who picked the date, and who picked the people who would be screening the questions. Heckman had no answers<\/strong>.\u00a0 He promised to get these important questions answered, but he never did.<\/p>\n

Walden, Duffy and Angell learned who the sponsors were when they received the deceptive postcard in the mail.\u00a0 You remember, the one that falsely stated that all candidates would be at the event, despite the fact that at least two had already declined?\u00a0 To this day, Walden, Duffy and Angell have still not been told who organized this event.<\/p>\n

A serious and legitimate event would have included all six candidates in all aspects of the planning, not the least of which was the date.\u00a0 That didn\u2019t happen.\u00a0 That confirms that this event is not a forum, it\u2019s a political event for the incumbent candidates, disguised as a forum in the hope that the public will place undue emphasis on their rehearsed performances.<\/p>\n

The unilateral choice of date remains inexcusable.<\/strong>\u00a0 How can anyone legitimately try to excuse the failure to even check the availability of Walden, Duffy and Angell?\u00a0 It is indefensible, and yet, these folks again try to justify it.\u00a0 Now they\u2019re arguing that it was OK to ignore Walden, Duffy and Angell because the Addison Business Association only gave two weeks\u2019 notice of their event.\u00a0 That\u2019s absurd.\u00a0 And, I guess they\u2019ve now abandoned the prior argument that this was the only night on which the Addison Conference Center was available?\u00a0 The tangled web is woven\u2026<\/p>\n

None of it changes the fact that when Walden, Duffy and Angell received Heckman\u2019s March 13th<\/sup> email, two of the three had scheduling conflicts, and there was absolutely zero effort made to accommodate these candidates.<\/p>\n

This event has been held sporadically and has been plagued with issues.\u00a0 <\/strong>This event hasn\u2019t been held every year for seven years.\u00a0 It\u2019s been held sporadically and has continually been plagued with issues.\u00a0 I for one have protested the deceptive format since the event was resurrected in 2014.<\/p>\n

The event was first held in 2009.\u00a0 That year, the organizers falsely claimed that it was sponsored by the League of Women Voters.\u00a0 Well, the League of Women Voters was pretty upset about that and created a fuss. Most candidates avoided the event.\u00a0 So, when these folks say that \u201cwe\u2019ve always done it this way,\u201d bear in mind that this claims starts with the abject failure of the 2009 event.<\/p>\n

My information is that there was no event in 2010, 2011 and 2012.\u00a0 I\u2019m uncertain of 2013, but I know that 2014 was when Meier injected himself squarely in the middle of it all.\u00a0 At the time, Meier supported three candidates and opposed two incumbents.\u00a0 Despite his obvious bias, he initially injected himself as one of those who was set to screen audience questions.\u00a0 Does that sound as problematic to you as it did to me?<\/p>\n

Prior to the 2014 event, I wrote to the Addison Business Association and the Metrocrest Chamber, expressing my deep concern about Meier\u2019s involvement and the deceptive format of the event.\u00a0 I pointed out that providing the questions in advance allowed candidates to rehearse their answers, and yet the event was presented as if they were answering extemporaneously.\u00a0 That gave a false impression to the unwitting attendees.\u00a0 I voiced the same objections in 2015.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll note that this year, both the Addison Business Association and the Metrocrest Chamber are not involved.<\/p>\n

All of this is hardly a sparkling history that justifies some claim that \u201cwe\u2019ve always done it this way.\u201d\u00a0 The truth is that this fake \u201cforum\u201d has always been a deceptive enterprise.\u00a0 More to the point, its troubled history certainly doesn\u2019t justify excluding half the candidates from all aspects of the planning, as was done this year.<\/p>\n

The opportunity to submit a (CENSORED) statement.<\/strong>\u00a0 It\u2019s also true that Walden, Duffy and Angell were offered the opportunity to submit a statement.\u00a0 But then they were given all sorts of rules and limitations on what could and couldn\u2019t be said, and what subjects they could and couldn\u2019t address.\u00a0 As you might guess, their views about the format of this event and their exclusion from all aspects of its planning were not on the \u201cpermitted\u201d list.\u00a0 All of which made the \u201coffer\u201d to submit a statement nothing more than lip service.<\/p>\n

What a PR scam!!\u00a0 <\/strong>It\u2019s really quite a scam when you come right down to it.\u00a0 You exclude the candidates you aren\u2019t supporting, refuse to tell them anything about how the event was organized, and give them no input into who will choose the questions or what criteria will be used.\u00a0 In other words, you hope they either have a scheduling conflict or the refusal to include them or provide them with information will cause them to justifiably decline the invitation.<\/p>\n

Then, you claim it\u2019s a real event, berate the excluded candidates for not attending, and use the opportunity to smear them.\u00a0 It\u2019s a sophomoric PR scam.<\/p>\n

If it walks like a scam and quacks like a scam, it\u2019s a scam.\u00a0 <\/strong>Look, these other folks can write all they want to try to justify the unjustifiable.\u00a0 It won\u2019t change a thing.\u00a0 The Ethics Commission says that if all candidates aren\u2019t given the \u201csame opportunity\u201d to participate in a \u201cforum\u201d then it\u2019s not a forum at all.\u00a0 It\u2019s a political event for certain candidates.\u00a0 In my view, you can\u2019t exclude half the candidates from every aspect of the planning process and come anywhere near showing what it necessary to meet the Ethics Commission\u2019s standards.<\/p>\n

This is just more of the same deceptive tactics that have brought us 30% higher taxes, a tax rate above the rollback rate for the first time in history, and continually overspending of the budget.<\/p>\n

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