Sadly the FOSH voters forum took place last night with over a 100 residents in attendance.
The participants were the Democrat Candidates for the At Large seat and for the 3rd Ward seat: respectfully The Reverend Tracy Brown , Roni Taylor and Adrian Mapp, Rasheed Habdul-Haqq.
Brown and Mapp have the Committee’s endorsement; while Taylor and Abdul-Haqq are running as independents. This makes for a weird ticket since Rev. Brown is the Mayor’s friend and Mapp and the Mayor are bitter antagonists.
I am not planning to go into overall answers to all the questions. Unfortunately Haqq’s performance was substandard. In this observer's view Haqq's repeated references to a permanent Fee Market at the Wood site (Grant and South Second) suggested a poor concept for economic development. He was obviously very uncomfortable with the format.
For this first report on the Forum I consider the grading of the participant’s performances as :
- · Mapp…B+#
- · Taylor B
- · Brown B-*
- · Haqq D
*Rev.Brown refused on legal advice to address any questions referring to the PMUA. The question was about a conflict of interest issue. In her closing remarks she did refer to it as that unnamed entity which should not be an election issue. Where I to take into account this action her rating would have been at best a C
I will go into more detail comments later,but I wish to post this for the morning.
This was added at 11:45,
# 7:AM; I felt that Mapp only rated a B+ not an A because +although his thoughts were well organized they represented no new positions. The nature of the questions asked did not help-more later.
# 7:AM; I felt that Mapp only rated a B+ not an A because +although his thoughts were well organized they represented no new positions. The nature of the questions asked did not help-more later.
Your too nice Doc, here is my rating and I honestly did not have a dog in the race:
ReplyDeleteMapp C +
Taylor C +
Brown D -
Haqq F
Good Morning Doc,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your coverage on the FOSH sponsored candidate forum.
Would you would clarify the meaning of the first sentence of your post "Sadly. . . . ".
Were you sad that the event took place on Wednesday night or were you sad that only 100 people attended?
Thank you,
Jim Spear
Jim, Thank YOU for your commitment to Plainfield. I thought that the turn out was excellent; there were between 125-140 there.
ReplyDelete"Sadly" reflected my disappointment with the overall tenor of the Forum; the general run of questions and the overall quality of the responses.
Of course my ego was shattered in that on ly one of my three questions was even indirectly asked. If I can remember them they will be subject of future blogs.
9:23; To a degree I was being kind. Mapp did reply to all questions,but his Muhlenberg position is pure political- by itself it is meaningless although there is a constructive idea which is more than anyone offered.
ReplyDeleteTaylor conducted herself reasonably well, at worse a B-, and there was no point hurting the others' feelings.
Thanks for your insight, Doc. I would have given Brown a D, Taylor a B, Mapp a B and Haqq a D-. If nothing else, I am more concerned than ever that Brown will be elected and the citizens of Plainfield will suffer. She appears to be more like Sharon than I thought. Especially, hiding behind a lawyer, that one would think was not needed, and being very vaque in almost every answer. The only concrete thing I know about Rev. Brown is that she won't get my vote any more than Sharon would ever get it again.
ReplyDelete