(Corrected on May 5 to reflect the omission of Tonye Rutherford's answer)
The Tribune’s various local candidate surveys are welcome contributions to the process, and can be found here.
As was already observed in other Internet locales, it is interesting that the newspaper has chosen to ask whether office seekers consider themselves to be “progressive.”
Following are the answers as submitted by candidates for county council.
Note that not all candidates bothered submitting answers to the Tribune’s survey, which in my opinion disqualifies them for public office. Note also that only one (Fessel) who answered the "progressive" question didn’t use the words “progress” or “progressive” in his answer. Perhaps he doesn’t know what the word means or, more likely given the record of his previous council service, is offended by it.
Striegal, who is another Democrat (a term used with remarkable elasticity hereabouts) insists that progress is somehow conservative in nature, while Republican incumbent Fendley goes for the tiresome welfare abuse jugular in reminding us that, “Government action is sometimes a hinderance to change and social improvement.”
And, thanks to the newspaper's resolve to print the answers as submitted, we see that Fendley and a couple of others have failed to grasp the innovation of spell-check.
Thoughts, anyone? Consider today as our open discussion time for county council prospects.
Do you consider yourself a progressive? How would you define progress? What gets left behind in your vision of progress?
Democrats
Jeff Fessel
“We need new businesses and new homes in Floyd County for our tax base. We must also maintain our roads and rural communities and protect them from overcrowding.”
Brad Striegel
“I do encourage progress and progress brings about change. Sometimes change is hard to embrace. In this county progress is a way of life. My goal is to help people understand that some progress is beneficial and necessary, and should be dealt with in a conservative matter through budgetary conscience.”
Ted Heavrin
“Yes. Doing things to improve living conditions for the community. When money runs low progress will be slowed down until funds become available.”
Thomas Lenfert
“I do, I am a go getter. This county has to progress or the taxes will run you out of this county. We have to have businesses or else this city will be a ghost town. People who wants this county not to change, we have to move ahead to make progress.”
Carol Shope
“Yes, I consider myself a progressive, looking forward to the future. People need to develop a vision for their community. Infrastructure, an industrial park in the county while retaining the rural atmosphere and developing community cohesions are vital to our well being.”
Randy Stumler
“Change will occur whether on not we want it to happen. Hopefully, being progressive means taking the challenges we are facing, weighing the options thoughtfully, and acting toward the greater good. This is how I approach my responsibility to the community.”
Candidates(s) listed on the ballot that did not submit questionnaires by deadline include: Donald Blevins, Greg A. McCartin and Joe Schindler, all of New Albany.
Republicans
Rocky Cambron
“Government’s must look to the future through long term planning. The communities best interests must be the deciding factor for change. Progress is fueled by new ideas and the ability to adapt to the changing enviroment. change is sometimes viewed negativley, but it is often needed and the results may not appear for sometime down the road.”
Dana Fendley (see NA Shadow Council for another reaction to this answer)
“According to Webster’s Dictionary, A progressive is a person believing in moderate political change and social improvement by government action. I think that term is ambigous. Government action is sometimes a hinderance to change and social improvement. a good example is the abuse of our welfare system. I define progress as moving forward with new ideas while cleaning out your old ways of doing things. In my vision of progress, what gets left behind is the old style partisan politics in government.”
Harry Harbison
“Planning ahead to direct an area that should either be commercial or residential and presenting it to the planning commission so they can be progressive for the county.”
Tonye Rutherford
“I do consider myself progressive, however progress comes with tough decisions, lets not mistake progress and growth. progress for the community is good as long as we weight all options as it comes to progress, by all options we should first consider how it benefits the community.”
Larry Summers
“I would definitely consider myself progressive because it is my goal to improve the county and the communities within this county. By definition in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, progress is gradual betterment or a forward/onward movement. It is my goal that we, as a community, better ourselves and that the politicians that represent the people better the community via their initiatives.
Candidates(s) listed on the ballot that did not submit questionnaires by deadline include: William Fender III of Greenville.
35 comments:
IMO, Mr. Cambron had the best answer. I will have to learn more about him.
Make sure to read the candiates' answers to all the question.
One candidate says in one of his answers that it is not the job of the council to make laws.
Maybe they should hand out a job description when someone files to run for office.
Do you consider yourself a progressive? How would you define progress? What gets left behind in your vision of progress?
Talk about loaded questions.
"Progress" and "Progressive" are squishy terms with a lot of historical baggage (some of it a little scary), and the dictionary isn't much help. I think Dana Fendley gave the most honest answer. (...and Shadow5's commentary in response is well taken.)
Honesty and political candidates? C'mon Brandon, I know that you are young but that ISU education had to have taught you better than that!!(vbg)
I also liked Shadow5's response.
I didn't say it was my favorite answer. Honesty doesn't always get you elected.
Reading the Tribune answers in totality left me with very little to vote for.
Glad I'm not the only one who came to that conclusion.
Agreed but the format does not allow for a lot of detail either. Not really sure how it can, in any reasonable(business)sense.
That said, I have found that it helps me eliminate some candidates. At least it helps narrow down my search for a qualifed candidate.
How about this question - Do you consider yourself a liberal? A collectivist? No? What title do you prefer to give yourself? Progressive is not just the name of a beer. It is what liberals prefer to be called. Forget titles and ask questions that citizens want answered.
Call me liberal, call me progressive, just don't call me late for dinner.
Which do you prefer. Conservative or Selfish?
I have to give Daniel credit, he is a master of labels, stereotypes, and clichés. Collectivists? I have to admit, this is the funniest thing I've read in a long time.
Forget titles and ask questions that citizens want answered.
The progressive question was submitted by a citizen. Daniel's a master of irony as well, however unintentional.
Reading the answers to this question (submitted by a reader) gave me little confidence in the candidates - or in the future of county government itself.
Everyone but Fendley said "Yes, I'm a progressive, and then proceeded to define that as "being for progress." I saw little vision or organizing principle in the answers.
As for the format being difficult, these candidates had plenty of time to reflect on their answers, write them down, use spellcheck, call a friend, run it past their advisors, and then submit the answer. Thus, their answers should have been their very best offering, unlike a surprise question in a public forum or while walking the neighborhoods. I think the questionnaire, while lacking in many ways, is far from awkward.
Instead of making excuses for the candidates, I think we should consider this their final exam question. As a group, they failed.
I do not think that the term progressive is squishy at all. It allows for conservatives and liberals to find a common ground for sustainable community.
A progressive believes in community, inclusiveness, responsibility, integrity, and intelligent decision-making. A progressive has an organizing principle for making those decisions. That does not exclude conservatives.
The meme of the rugged pioneer building this country on his own is a myth. Until the U.S. government bestowed legitimacy through "government programs" like surveys, land offices, and military protection, none of our forebears set out to build a country without a government. Owning property was too important to them. They knew land was the key and they willingly paid taxes to a central government to guarantee their land.
Unless your ancestors were French trappers before the U.S. asserted its sovereignty, government is what put you where you are today.
This citizen wants to know if any of the candidates a) have a progressive vision, b) can articulate it, and c) are willing to claim the label. M. Short could have easily submitted questions to the candidates to get the answers to his questions. I assume he did not. Unless he's the one who asked the asinine question of county candidates about what they were going to do about undocumented immigrants among us.
Do you consider yourself selfish? How would you define selfishness? What gets left behind in your vision of goverment by people who work only in their self-interest and reject "government programs" as a "hinderance?"
I think the term's a little shaky, but I can't disagree with your analysis, as they all had time to define it for themselves and respond accordingly.
Of course, I'd already ruled out any of the incumbents anyway, including former ones. During the county home fiasco, not a single one of them had the wherewithal to simply say, "Hey, I don't think letting our already built and paid for assets crumble so we can tear them down and build lesser quality new ones at great expense is such a good idea."
It's a notion that goes well beyond historic preservation and, for all their financial responsibility bravado, they pretty much unanimously made doing so a priority.
That's not behavior that should be rewarded.
For my part, I thought the "progressive" questions were good ones, just loaded. The questions were a missed opportunity to lay out a vision.
I make no excuse for any of the answers, including Fendley's. She simply appeared to me to honestly answer the questions, which is what I think the citizen who submitted them had in mind.
I think the candidate's answers, however inartful, demonstrate how malleable the terms "progress" and "progressive" have become. U.S. political history is full of examples.
That doesn't prevent us from reclaiming the terms, and I am partial to all4word's effort, but I respectfully disagree that they have a commonly understood meaning or history.
Reading through these uniformly visionless and uninspired statements of nothingness I wonder what the point of democracy is...
the winner of the say nothing award has to go to Randy Stumler. He should have had many things to elaborate on especially since he is the current chairman of the Floyd County Democrat Party.
Its time for the Floyd Democrats to reevaluate the current leadership. Reorg next year Mr. Stumler
All4word wrote:
"A progressive believes in community, inclusiveness, responsibility, integrity, and intelligent decision-making..."
Add "This is what I propose to do as Councilperson". I see little difference from what some of them wrote. A paragraph or two, I still maintain, is a difficult way to answer such a question--even for a skilled writer.
Give and take works much better. Campaign literature could be used to expand and add detail. Open forums for questions, answers and follow up questions won't happen. I have yet to see a piece of campaign literature that adds anything. Unfortunate and sad. Include maddening.
Again, the format did not help me choose one but did help eliminate some.
IAH,
Do you know if the candidates were restricted to a certain word count?
If so, the Tribune should've published that information along with the answers. If not, the candidates themselves set the format and one would have to assume they had little detail or explanation to add.
Bluegill,
Granted, I do not know that the candidates were restricted in word counts. It is an assumption on my part and even if not expressly indicated to the candidates by the Tribune, I don't think the candidates, nor the paper, would assume that full page(or more)answers to each question would be published. Not an unreasonable assumption, is it?
In any case, even if lengthy answers were published, there is no way of knowing if the candidate wrote it themselves or even had input. Without personal knowledge of the candidate and/or a chance, face to face, in a public forum to question them, the written Q & A is of limited value. (Please note "limited")
Progressive, regressive, conservative, liberal....who really defines what these labels mean anyway? For instance, say I want to build a 30 story glass and steel condo in the center of Downtown New Albany and consider myself a "Progressive", but according to the collective views of most on this site it would be considered regressive and short sighted because it would destroy the historical nature of the area. However, to me it may seem backwards and regressive to try to hang on to the past by sinking good money into structurally unsound buildings with limited space. We define the meanings of the labels we apply to ourselves for ourselves and we judge others based on our own definitions and if their definition doesn't match our own then we label them something negative. The same has been done with the meanings of conservative and liberal.... conservatives are self-centered, tight-assed,war loving, bible thumpers and liberals are tree hugging, gay marrying, abortion giving, give away the farm,hippie freaks. As for me, I'm a realist and I know what it means to me and I don't care what it means to you. In other words, live and let live. If you have a vision for downtown, make it happen. If the current elected officials don't meet your expectations run for office. However, don't be surprised when you find out it's not as easy to get things done as you thought it would be and perhaps, just perhaps, some of them have already tried to do the things that you are hoping for and have failed. (yeah, I know, your calling me a cynic or maybe a smart ass. It's okay, I'm used to both)
By the way, if the truth be told, I'm a modern humanist who occasionally likes to play the devils advocate.
@,
How much will the condos be going for?
Well, the way things go in NA I would start them out at $200,000 and after 4 or 5 years I will either have to lower the price to about $85,000 and file bankruptcy or work out a deal with Mr. Miller down at CHDO.
For the record, I think glass and steel condos downtown would be fantastic, though 30 stories may be problematic depending on where the condos were located. As I've mentioned many times here and elsewhere, the practice of architecture didn't die a hundred years ago. If people 100 years ago believed that it had, we wouldn't have our downtown.
That's why I've consistently advocated for modernist architecture in the downtown CBD and surrounding neighborhoods, using personal connections to make free architectural services available whenever I could arrange it.
There are very few buildings downtown that are structurally unsound. What's regressive is to tear down perfectly adaptable, structurally sound structures in order to replace them with lesser examples.
With that out of the way, I can tell you that a lot of us here have firsthand knowledge of how difficult it is to "get things done". Most often, the problem is not politicians but the citizen ignorance and apathy that supports them.
That's why many of us here have and will strive to change that paradigm by consistently involving ourselves- advocating, investing, cajoling, investigating, chastising, presenting - day in and day out.
In terms of current politicians, rest assured that none of them who typically catch hell here have tried and failed in the past to accomplish those goals that many of us feel important. Most have never even spoken of them publicly.
Given your admonishment, though, should we assume that you're satisfied with current elected officials, running for office, or just don't care?
Oh, I care... I care to the point of bleeding ulcers and antideppresants.
There are some public servants I am satisfied with and some I am not, and some are my friends; many of whom fall in to both areas of satisfaction.
Well, darn. I was hoping to invest in that 30 story condo downtown. Guess that money will just have to keep burning a hole in my pocket.
I don't have the bleeding ulcers yet but, if it weren't for NABC, I'd be right there with you on the antidepressants.
Any suggestions for dealing with the rampant ignorance (and pride in such) that rules our fair area, both in and out of political office?
In fact, our historic preservation new construction design guidelines discourage mimicking older styles.
New Construction Guidelines
My sense is that a majority, if not all, of the current preservation commission members would welcome innovative modern architecture that respects the existing structures and streetscape (full disclosure - I'm on the commission).
I think what many need to remember when dealing with politicians, whether they be local or national, is that they all (whether they admit it or not) have large egos. Now I will admit that the lower the IQ the larger the ego, but it is all politicians biggest fault. Many of them if approached in a confrontational manner will either balk or they will ignore you completely.
I have also learned that most activist suffer from the same fault (again whether they admit it or not) and they tend to approach politicians in a confrontational manner.
My advice, stroke their ego and make them think that it's their idea. If works for me all the time. I mean hey, we all enjoy a good stroke now and then.
I'll admit to the ego bit as it pertains to me, no problem. It doesn't affect my thinking but I get a kick from the occasional stroking as it's usually relatively easy to see it for what it is. People are so used to doing things that way that they're startled when it doesn't have the desired effect.
A reasonably intelligent and principled politician (or activist), however, responds to reason without need of stroking.
Those who don't fit the above mold respond to fear and expect others to do the same.
The trouble is that the potentially principled politicos will rarely stand up in any sort of meaningful way to the fear mongering ones, leaving them less principled than they could've been and with a lot less support. Fear mongering wins in those cases.
How sad is it that our political system would be based on stroking the egos of those least deserving of it?
Sometimes being a politician is a lot like being a single parent with hundreds of kids; you're getting pulled in every direction. One kid wants the downtown cleaned up, another wants you to let them alone so they can rent out their properties as they like, another kid wants to halt all construction in their area and another wants to be able to build where every he likes, and on and on and on, and each and everyone of them tells you if you don't let them have there way they will make sure that you won't get re-elected. Trust me it sucks!
You are right about the fear mongering though. It pisses me off to no end when someone uses their position to scare the crap out of the constituents so that they can get their way. Those people are the lowest form of life.
If one removes re-electability as a primary factor in decision making, the problem you describe is essentially solved.
One of the reasons people don't get re-elected is because it's clear they allow such concerns to override nearly everything else.
That's fear.
Blogger na girl said...
Make sure to read the candiates' answers to all the question.
One candidate says in one of his answers that it is not the job of the council to make laws.
Maybe they should hand out a job description when someone files to run for office.
Please refer to IC 36-2-3 prior to criticizing candidates. The council is the fiscal body for the county and it does not mention creating laws under the responsibilites section
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