Forum (Photo – Staff)
A public forum was hosted last night at All Saints Episcopal Church.
By Editorial Board
According to materials provided, the forum was for a “city council candidate forum on housing and homelessness.” It was sponsored by three organizations: LAProgressive, Pasadena for All, and LAForward Institute. The moderator of the forum was James Farr of The Conversation.
The agenda was divided into one forum for each district: District 2 candidates in attendance were Rick Cole and Felicia Williams and a spirited question and answer session ensued.
For District 3, however, Justin Jones was not there, leaving the forum solely to Brandon Lamar.
According to James Farr, who sat beside Brandon in the empty chair, Jones was invited. Twelve emails were sent to him, but none were answered. If a guest doesn’t show for a forum, it’s best to cancel the second forum, as it’s no longer a forum.
Lack of organizers’ experience, or professional skill, may have contributed to this error. It would have been classier to go on with one forum with two candidates present and announce the cancellation of the other one with only one candidate present.
From nonprofitvote.org: "Invite all viable candidates for a specific office to your forum and make an equal effort to encourage each of them to attend. If it is a two-candidate race and only one agrees to attend, you should not go forward with your forum."
[This article has been updated to reflect a correct headline and clarifications for the last paragraph. Jan. 29, 3:30 pm]
“Lack of organizers’ experience, or professional skill, may have contributed to this error”, is exactly right. The organizers went to a dishonest and farce journalist to promote and mediatate this candidate forum.
To have a person who lacks integrity moderate such a significant forum was a slap in the face to the candidates. Candidate elects our running for official position to govern the city of Pasadena. The community and candidates have been disrespected and used as a pond for the personal desires of a fallen journalist who desperately needs views on Conversation Live.
Justin Jones did the right thing to decline such buffoonery. Brandon Lamar should not succumb to such disparities and decline to #FarrFetching
Seems like canceling the second forum gives the candidate who didn’t show exactly what they wanted and unfairly “punishes” the candidate who did show. I’m glad Brandon got to speak.
With this position, Colorado Blvd is greenlighting Justin Jones to dodge all candidate forums so they get cancelled.
Instead of calling out candidates for avoiding going on the record, you focus your efforts on shaming members of our community for even trying to get candidates on the record when incumbents are tactically running away from being on the record.
Seems like the opposite of trying to ensure the community is informed.