I announced this evening, during a meeting of our neighborhood association, that I’d been thinking about organizing a Mayoral debate here in Ypsi. The idea was extremely well-received, and now it looks as though I have to follow-through. It might be a bit too early to go public with this, as I haven’t even run the idea by all of the candidates yet. (I’m thinking that, in addition to the Mayoral candidates, we’d also have a debate between the individuals vying for the open City Council seat.) But, as we’ve already started making inquiries as to the availability of an EMU auditorium, I thought the cat might get out of the bag anyway… So, just consider this a heads-up, and keep checking back here for details. (We’d like to have it on a Thursday evening in late July, but it depends on the availability of a venue that can accommodate us. (I don’t know that it’s realistic, but we’re shooting for an audience of about 250.))
update: I also wanted to mention that, over the course of the next few weeks, I’d be assembling a committee to plan the event. If you would like to be involved, let me know. I don’t suspect that it will take a lot of us to pull it off, but I’d at least like representatives from each of the neighborhood associations.
10 Comments
Fantastic idea !
Oh yeah, neighborhood association meeting. That sounds familiar. As if, perhaps, somebody was going to e-mail me information. (Ahem.)
(Actually, Cara mentioned around 7 yesterday that, oh, by the way, somebody had stuck a flyer in our door about a neighborhood meeting, at x place and time. So, had I actually been planning to come, I could have. And, actually, I admire whomever went around flyering the neighborhood before the meeting. That’s pretty cool.)
Let me know if I can help; I’ve co-planned the Mayoral/Council debates put on by the UM Urban Planning dept. the past two years.
I wonder if you could find someone to stream the audio over the internet?
I think this is a great idea. I am in!
I like your idea of late July. July 27th would work well.
If we can’t get this going at EMU, we should able to do it at one of the local schools. Streaming should not be a problem. We may not be able to do it live, but we can for sure put it up as a podcast right after the event.
Let me know if there is anything I can do to help move this forward.
– Steve Pierce
“Do you now, or have you ever, used a men’s personal grooming device?”
Something I hadn’t counted on – I’m getting notes from candidates running for other offices, asking if we could widen the scope of what’s been proposed. I guess that’ll be one of the first things addressed by the committee, once we’ve got one.
And thanks for the offers to help, Steve and Murph.
Is this when you go from (occasional) zine publisher, Blogger, and ball-shaving sales person to policitian-making-machine runner?
Can I come and speak at your church, Dan and Kitty?
i’ll help, and can represent the miles area neighborhood association (i know, no one has ever heard of our little assoc just east of prospect and south of cross)… we actually talked about such a thing at our neighborhood association meeting.
if it was at EMU, wouldn’t it be great to organize neighborhood-wide walks to the debate? get the community active, and walking and talking together, and not have to worry about parking??
“wouldn’t it be great to organize neighborhood-wide walks to the debate?”
I had entertained a similar thought, but I’m having a hard time locating enough torches and pitchforks.