The Great Decatur Online Debate
Decatur Metro | October 21, 2009Welcome to Decatur Metro’s Live Online City Commission Debate! The debate begins promptly at 8pm and is scheduled until 9:30p. If you have a comment or a follow-up question to ask the candidates during the debate, enter it below for consideration. A few more details below this window.
Candidates will take turns answering questions first, second, third, fourth. The order will be announced at the outset of the debate. Candidates will be asked to wait at least 30 seconds between replies to avoid any sort of “pig-pile” effect.
Latest from Decaturish
Thanks to DecaturMetro for mediating and to all the candidates for participating in this forum.
Nice job, DM!
Well done DM, and thank you.
Excellent! But shouldn’t there be a post-debate “spin zone”?
Go DM! Heading in, I was highly skeptical about the utility of this format, but I thought it rocked. Not only do I know who spels [sic] well, but I think I have a pretty good handle on each candidates priorities.
Thanks guys and gals. It was a lot of fun!
Well… I just can’t support anyone looking for a Bulldogs victory.
Go Jackets… Sting Em!
Just kidding Kyle!!!…. Although watching Tech beat VATech was almost as much fun as it will be watching Tech make Georgia cry.
I think he meant the Decatur Bulldogs, Mr. Fixit!
You have to understand. Techies gauge EVERYTHING through their inferiority complex over everything Bulldog. Understandably so.
Hmmm… maybe I did jump the gun on that comment a bit. Decatur Bulldogs are fine, Kyle. Of course it’s all very confusing to my 5 year old son… explaining the terrible mistake that happened when someone made Decatur’s mascot a wrinkly old dog with sleep apnea instead of a fast and fearsome yellow jacket and how he needs to like some Bulldogs better than other bulldogs… but all yellow jackets are fine.
Well, our high school mascot was a Highlander… yep, a guy in a skirt…. so I guess things could be much worse.
That was fun, entertaining and informative. Job well done DM!
I missed it live. Was it excruciatingly slow waiting for everyone to type out their answers?
It’s a pretty quick read now.
It wasn’t too bad. An audible typing sound played whenever someone posted. So you could multitask between posts and switch back whenever there was action.
Sick child so I had to do the replay. In replay, the online debate seemed effective, useful, and worth doing. Since it’s so successful, I urge you to do it with the four School Board candidates who are competing for two positions too. I see an online debate as not being in competition with the Westchester School Board Candidate Forum on Thursday, October 29, 6:30 PM, but, rather, in addition to it. Different issues and sides of the candidates come up in this forum vs one that involves public speaking. In terms of attendance, many parents have trouble getting away from work, homework, after school activities, dinner hour, and bedtime to make it to a school night activity out of the home. Finally, one can never have too many opportunities to truly get to know the candidates. Some folks manage to make it to a lot of School Board meetings and other CSD events where Board members share their opinions and decisions but not a whole lot. Board meetings are necessarily designed more to get business done than for efficient dialog with the community so they are long and pretty darn dry most of the time; consequently attendance is low.
Plus, we need all School Board candidates to be able to either demonstrate a decent haiku or show the solution to a quadratic equation! A little school competence is always nice in an educational leader!
I think having one of these for the school board candidates is a great idea! This is such cool tech tool, it can be used for a lot of other issues/concerns/dialogues. All done in the comfort of your home in your bunny slippers! I am so loving that!
I’m game if you are
Bravo, Decatur Metro for staying out front with technology to keep our Decatur residents informed about important local races and issues.
Thanks for hosting this!
I thought this was great. It would have been difficult for me to make a debate in person. What a great alternative and service to the community!
Great job DM, thanks
I found the waits between answers to be rather difficult but then again I am an impatient person. I had hoped there would be more back-and-forth dialogue and more questions, but there was a real time restraint because the candidates had to type their answers. However, having a transcript of the debate which can be read later is really great for a lot of people. And this medium allowed me to get my kids to bed, do the dishes and knit a sweater but still attend the debate, so I really appreciated that.
I think we can never learn too much about our candidates and this forum along with in-person debates and each candidate’s website really helps us get a handle on their perspectives. Thanks for doing this DM!
I like what Fred said about parking requirements: “Look at unbundling parking (or reducing parking requirements) so residents who don’t feel the need to have a car can purchase a downtown condo at a reduced price (and pay less taxes) The cost to provide spaces in a parking deck can be $40,000.00 a space and more.”
I’d like to know what the other candidates and what other people in general think about that. Parking requirements are a big limitation on any city’s ability to be a walkable community.
John, I had a parking question ready to go but I never got to it. I agree that it’s a bigger issue than many people realize and it would be good to get some feedback from the candidates on it prior to the election. Perhaps I’ll throw a line out to the candidates at some point over the next couple weeks and at least put together a post on this topic.
[...] mighty and garlanded Decatur Metro hosted a live online debate last night featuring candidates for Decatur City Commission. The debate was in writing; with [...]
Thanks again everyone. This was obviously a total experiment for me too and I was pleasantly surprised by the results. I was most worried about the lag time, but as was stated previously, the little typing noise that alerted you that there was a new comment, allowed you to keep yourself occupied while watching the debate.
The “Cover It Live” software is really great. There are lots of other features we didn’t use (like online polls) and if I have one regret it would be that I didn’t incorporate more reader comments into the fray. For instance, someone posted a great follow up to Mr. Radford at one point and I missed it because I was busy getting the next question ready. In that same vein, Mr. Goebel asked a question that was very similar to my “school communication” question, but I didn’t see it until after I had posted my own question. It would have been much cooler to use his question instead of mine.
But live and learn! To all the folks that sent in questions, a big thanks. I’m sorry I couldn’t ask all of them, but even some questions that I originally meant to ask, I never did. I tried to go with the follow of the conversation to keep things lively.
In terms of a school board debate, I would love to do it, but honestly I just don’t have the time. Though this was just a two hour event, it took many offline hours to prepare. This blog is a second full-time job that doesn’t pay very much.
DM rocks again !
Thanks, DM. A great service to the community and a huge benefit for the candidates too.
What is the etymology of pig-pile?
Thank you DM the debate was informative, educational and showed all of us some insight into the candidates and all from the comfort of my living room, can’t beat that !!
wow. I just read it all and it was really a great service. As a new (10 months!) Decatur resident and S Dectaur homeowner, I am really interested in the issues around this election. As a mother to a pre-schooler two years away from kindergarten, I am particularly interested in what’s going on with the annexation and school redistricting. Thank you so much for doing this and giving those of us who can’t make it to the forums a place to hear from the candidates.
I just read over this transcript, and I am thoroughly impressed! This was awesome, DM! Great job.
Liked Patti’s haiku too.
I just read over the transcript too because I wondered how it read compared to reading in “real time” as we typed. I know there was a hustle on our part to get our responses out, but, overall, I think it reads pretty well after the fact.
Enjoyed the tryout.
After reading through the transcript, I have to say that I think Patti Garrett gave the best responses of us all.
Great use of interweb here, this is democracy in action. Highlights for me include typing styles under pressure, the burdens of projecting a political philosophy underneath a frosting of logical response to complex issues, the freedom of great intentions vs records of accomplishment… the real world is exposed! I agree the school board debates would be useful in a similar format – bunny slippers all around!