| Author
|
Post |
 
|
|
Steve Myers
Site Admin
|
Eighth Ward City Council candidate Ehren Gonzales saved his biggest punch for last during a forum Tuesday, criticizing incumbent Lawrence B. Murphy for "negative attack ads" that he says distort his attendance record as a Mott Community College trustee.
Showing an empty chair with the caption "Where's Gonzales?" one piece of Murphy campaign literature asserted that Gonzales missed "almost 40 percent" of meetings over the past two years.
But Gonzales said that since joining the MCC board in November 2000, he's missed only 13 percent of the meetings, and more than half of those absences were because his wife was ill.
"My wife had a medical issue. She had a brain tumor," Gonzales said during his closing statement as the forum's final speaker. "You expect me to be at the meetings during that time she's in the hospital getting her brain tumor removed?
"Unfortunately, Mr. Murphy has focused again on the negatives. This is part of the problem that Flint has, and he has fallen in this thing. It's time to stop the bickering. It's time to move the city of Flint forward, and it's time to be positive about what Flint can be."
Murphy, who counts five meetings that Gonzales attended via telephone as absences, said afterward that it was Gonzales who went negative first, saying Gonzales has wrongly implied he is intimidated by other council members and is part of bickering at City Hall. He also questioned Gonzales' reason for missing some of the meetings.
"I don't know because they were scattered meetings," he said. "He brought up that he had participated via telephone, but none of the other members participated that way. Is that the way they conduct their meetings, by phone down there? "You got to be present."
The attendance issue capped the 90-minute event that 60 people watched at Calvary United Methodist Church, 2111 Flushing Road.
The forum was mostly dominated by issue-themed questions ranging from what the candidates thought about outsourcing and an upcoming police millage renewal to what they like about the city and how they might improve behavior at City Hall.
Sixth Ward candidates Sheldon A. Neeley and Nancy DeKatch, who also were part of the forum, had differing views on some of the issues.
DeKatch said she's for a new police millage to get more officers on the street, while Neeley said he doesn't support new taxes, adding that savings for officers likely could be had from other parts of the budget.
Neeley, who is president of a local union, also said he wasn't in favor of outsourcing, while DeKatch remained open to the idea.
But the two also echoed similar themes of unifying city government and staying in touch with the voters. Neeley said the city needs "trained diplomats," while DeKatch said the new council members need to be "peacemakers."
One of the election's main backdrops has been an ongoing war between a majority of the council and Mayor Don Williamson over several issues, including the budget and federal block grant funding.
"As a citizen, I don't understand why the council and the mayor are so preoccupied with themselves," DeKatch said. "I would never stop campaigning, and I would never lose touch of the residents and their needs."
Said Neeley: "Put people downtown who have never been out of touch with the community, and I've worked, lived here all my life. I've always been in touch with my neighbors, my community."
Full Story:
http://www.mlive.com/news/fljournal/index.ssf?/base/news-32/1130950215308590.xml&coll=5 |
|
|
Wed Nov 02, 2005 5:28 pm |
|
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Register
Profile
FlintTalk.com Forum Index
> Political Talk
