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Cross post from HatCityBLOG

When it comes to Mark Boughton excuses in regards to avoiding FREE and OPEN debates with Gary Goncalves, the last honest man in Danbury used the this laughable recycled excuse:

“It’s already late in the (election) cycle and we do have a full schedule of events,” he said. “I also have a responsibility to run the city of Danbury.”

Now we know why about Boughton’s full schedule on October 20 and 22nd…he couldn’t get away from his dinner appointments

Think I’m kidding, just read this letter to the editor.

In the Oct. 20 article “Residents hold protest in front of City Hall,” reporter Dirk Perrefort states “Boughton is the only incumbent in the state to reject a League debate in the last 15 years, a claim league officials couldn’t verify.”

Verification came in the form of my conversation last week with Jean Rabinow of the Connecticut League of Women Voters.

Sept. 10 was the date that Mayor Boughton was invited by the League to debate. He said he never received it, so a second invitation was sent on Sept. 24.

In the article, the mayor excuses himself from debating by referring to the lateness of the follow-up invitation.

Past excuses from the mayor include: his first responsibility is to run the City of Danbury. I respect that comment, only on the proposed evenings of the debate, Oct. 20 and 22, he was scheduled to enjoying dinners at Barden Corporation and Ability Beyond Disability. Not to diminish their importance, I still think his first allegiance should be to the larger voter population.

This action shows great disrespect to the League, the voters of Danbury, and his Democratic challenger Gary Goncalves. The League is about education in a nonpartisan, accessible and open forum with a live audience and it’s free. Not during a $45 per plate luncheon, not on cable — and not in a Republican-oriented venue.

So Boughton couldn’t provide the public a FREE and OPEN debate because he couldn’t break his dinner appointments?!?

Oh yeah, that sounds like a real busy schedule…

People over Politics or Politics over THE PEOPLE!

UPDATE: Hark! Danbury’s last honest man found time in his busy schedule to respond…

Boy, they really are getting desperate…

Today in a letter to the editor to the NewsTimes, one of my opponents volunteers alleges that I was attending two dinners (one for Barden, and one for Ability Beyond Disability) on the nights for potential League of Women Voter debates.

Aside from dragging two terrific institutions into politics, one a major employer (Barden) in Danbury, and the other an outstanding service organization that does tremendous work with the disabled (Ability Beyond Disability), the author of the letter is just…wrong.

So let me set the record straight.

Tuesday evening I attended an employee recognition night for Barden Corporation (congratulations everybody) two awards (one posthumously) were given by me for 50 years of service to Barden. I did not stay for the dinner. This event was booked long before any campaign events except the Chamber of Commerce debate which was scheduled at the beginning of the fall.

Thursday evening I am scheduled to attend an auction at WCSU to feed people less fortunate than us and then I am playing in a wheel chair basketball game for Ability Beyond Disability at Danbury High School. Stop by and check it out, it is a major fundraiser for the organization.. No dinner in sight.

Just pathetic..

You’re kidding me right?

Notwithstanding the fact that:

• Boughton found time to attend at least FIVE debates when he ran for mayor back in 2001,
• the mayor’s excuse to the Fairfield Weekly regarding not debating Goncalves doesn’t pass the smell test, AND
• the 45 dollar a plate chamber of commerce debate has not been televised on the government access channel (something Boughton promised he would do),

let’s go back and re-read the mayor’s excuse in not agreeing to a FREE and OPEN debate.

“It’s already late in the (election) cycle and we do have a full schedule of events,” he said. “I also have a responsibility to run the city of Danbury.”

So, your responsibilities to the city of Danbury consist of attending an awards ceremony (hmm…wonder how long that took you to do) and a wheelchair basketball charity event. These two things prevented him from doing at least one FREE and OPEN debate for the residents you supposedly care about?

Mayor Boughton had events to do on Tues and Thurs? Okay, fine. How about Monday, Wednesday, Friday, the weekend? I’m sure many members of the public would like to see your schedule for every evening from now until election day (including weekends) so we can ALL see how busy you really are when it comes to running the city. I mean since your so busy from now until election day to do ONE FREE and OPEN debate, I think the public has a right to know exactly what you’re doing (besides littering the area with MORE lawn signs).

In short, the mayor of the 7th largest city in Connecticut felt that attending two fundraisers is more important than offering ONE FREE and OPEN debate…and he has the audacity to describe the person who informed the public about his schedule as “pathetic.”

Pot meet kettle.

---

RELATED POSTS:

Day 39: Residents protest Boughton refusal to debate

Day 31: Funny how time changes a man

Day 27: FREE and OPEN debate excuses go from the ridiculous to the absurd

Day 25: fundraising for candidates are more important to Boughton than FREE and OPEN debates

Day 24 and no word from Boughton

Democratic Town Committee chairman weighs in on Boughton avoiding FREE and OPEN debates

News-Times to Boughton: Stop waffling on FREE and OPEN debates

Avoiding free and open debates is nothing new for Boughton

Goncalves blasts Boughton over not agreeing to open debates

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Cross post from HatCityBLOG

This afternoon, a group of residents held a protest outside City Hall to express their outrage over Mayor Boughton’s arrogant refusal to hold FREE and OPEN debates with Democratic mayoral nominee Gary Goncalves.

Led by organizer Ellen DuBois, protesters armed with signs such as “No debate in a police state”, “No Democracy without debate” and “What are you hiding from Danbury voters?” walked along Deer Hill Ave and West Street and made their presence known during the hour-long protest.

Before things got underway, I had a chance to interview DuBois about the protest.

RELATED POSTS:

Day 31: Funny how time changes a man

Day 27: FREE and OPEN debate excuses go from the ridiculous to the absurd

Day 25: fundraising for candidates are more important to Boughton than FREE and OPEN debates

Day 24 and no word from Boughton

Democratic Town Committee chairman weighs in on Boughton avoiding FREE and OPEN debates

News-Times to Boughton: Stop waffling on FREE and OPEN debates

Avoiding free and open debates is nothing new for Boughton

Goncalves blasts Boughton over not agreeing to open debates

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A cross post from HatCityBLOG

From yesterday’s Danbury Chamber of Commerce luncheon, here’s the unedited video footage of the “45 dollar a plate” debate between Mark Boughton and Gary Goncalves.

If you want to download the video to you computer, you can do so by right clicking on the following link and saving the file to your computer (WARNING: The file size of the video is large so only attempt to download the file using a high-speed connection).

DOWNLOAD VIDEO BY CLICKING HERE (894 meg)

NOTE: I didn’t have my normal tripod so there will be a couple of moments where the video will shake. I also forgot to adjust the shutter speed of my camera so the brightness of the video is a tad bit low. In the interest of time, I didn’t adjust the brightness or edit the file during the production process.

BONUS: Here’s the post-debate interviews myself and Ideas at Work and Beyond local access show host Marty Heiser conducted:

RELATED POSTS:

VIDEO: 2009 Board of Education forum.

Day 31: Funny how time changes a man

Day 27: FREE and OPEN debate excuses go from the ridiculous to the absurd

Day 25: fundraising for candidates are more important to Boughton than FREE and OPEN debates

Day 24 and no word from Boughton

Democratic Town Committee chairman weighs in on Boughton avoiding FREE and OPEN debates

News-Times to Boughton: Stop waffling on FREE and OPEN debates

Avoiding free and open debates is nothing new for Boughton

Goncalves blasts Boughton over not agreeing to open debates

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cross post from HatCityBLOG

The municipal election debate season in Danbury kicked off on Wednesday.

Held the Broadview Middle School, candidates for the Board of Education offered their take on school-related issues during the Danbury teachers union forum.

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the forum but you can click here to read Eileen FitzGerald’s write-up on the event.

From Wednesday night, here’s video footage of the forum in it’s entirety.

NOTE: Thanks to John Nuemiller for taping the forum and sharing the video. You can watch the forum on Comcast channel 23 TOMORROW at 7PM.

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cross post from HatCityBLOG

This whole matter involving the mayor’s waffling over debating in a FREE and OPEN forum with Democratic mayoral candidate Gary Goncalves has gone from the ridiculous to the absurd.

Today, The Fairfield Weekly wrote a piece on the m wrote a piece on the matter which produced more questions about the mayor’s response to the League of Women Voter’s invitation than answers.

It’s municipal election season, so that means it’s time for arguing — and in Danbury, they’re arguing about how they should commence arguing.

Gary Goncalves, Democratic challenger to Republican Mayor Mark Boughton, is blasting Boughton over his non-commitment to a debate the League of Women Voters tried to schedule for Oct. 20 or 22. Boughton says he can’t make those dates, and the only debate currently scheduled between the two is a $45-a-plate luncheon hosted by the Greater Danbury Chamber of Commerce (Oct. 14).

“It’s unfair to me as a candidate and even more so to the community and taxpayers of Danbury that the mayor will not commit to a free and open debate,” says Goncalves.

Boughton says he didn’t get the League’s invitation until Sept. 24, and by that time he’d already made plans. “I can’t make those dates,” he says.

It’s almost laughable that the mayor is using the excuse that he didn’t get an invite from the LWV until Sept 24 seeing that Goncalves sent a press release asking Boughton to accept the LWV’s invite AND that the mayor responded to Goncalves’ request in an News-Times article that was published on Sept 20th.

“There are already several events planned for next month,” he said. “Anything beyond that may be difficult to fit into our schedule.”

While keeping that in mind, take a look at what the last honest man in Danbury said about the invitation from the LWV back on SEPTEMBER 25 2009

In response Boughton said he only received the invitation to the league debate late last week and he will evaluate whether he can attend the event.

Now, using Boughton’s own quote, in an article that was PUBLISHED on Sept 25, the mayor stated that he received the invite from the LWV “late last week.” If you check a calendar, Sept 25th was on a FRIDAY, which means that “late last week” would had been anywhere from Sept 16 to 18. The LWV send the first invite to Boughton’s campaign on Sept 10th and, according to the Fairfield Weekly piece, hand delivered the SECOND invite to City Hall on Sept 24th.

Carol Elder, president of the LWV Danbury Area, says invitations were sent to the campaign headquarters of both candidates on Sept. 10. “Gary got his and agreed to the debate and I never heard back from the mayor,” Elder says.

She eventually had a second invitation hand-delivered to City Hall two weeks later. “I don’t know why he didn’t get [the first invitation] unless his campaign isn’t passing his mail to him,” she says.

…are you catching on?

Lets go back and look at another quote from Boughton from Sept 25th

“It’s already late in the (election) cycle and we do have a full schedule of events,” he said. “I also have a responsibility to run the city of Danbury.”

In face of a News-Times editorial that was critical of the mayor’s action in the matter, and continued blasting from Goncalves, Mayor Mark is giving the impression that he’s having a change of heart.

“However, in the interest of public discourse I proposed, as an alternative, a TV debate, which can be seen [on the Comcast government access channel] anytime they want to show it.”

On one hand, the mayor states that his schedule is too busy from now until election day to do any other debates AND that he has a “responsibility to run the city” and SUDDENLY Boughton has found time in his “busy” schedule to participate in a debate on public access television…a debate that would be next to extremely hard to pull off.

Notwithstanding the fact that a debate that’s done at Comcast studios would need a moderator, an agreed format, and scheduled on an agreed date and time (a.k.a., something the LWV had already set up last month), in order to do the event, the show would also need a crew to run the studio (director, two to three camera operators, audio operator, graphics operator, etc).

Now as a person who’s involved in a several shows on public access, I can tell you that:

• finding an hour in the evening to do a debate in the studio,
• finding a full studio crew (who are volunteers) that can be at the studio at the agreed time,
• a moderator that both parties would agree upon,

a debate on local access at this late date is pretty much next to impossible.

At the very least the “debate” would have to be taped during the morning when more studio time is available (evening studio time at Comcast is most likely booked from now till well past Election Day) Finding a crew to tape a debate at the studio in the morning/early afternoon is all the more difficult seeing that people who volunteer their time at local access work during the day.

And then there’s that thing about the mayor having a “responsibility to run the city of Danbury.”

…are you catching on?

Unfortunately, the mayor’s waffling on FREE and OPEN debates has resulted in the possibility of the League of Women Voters hosting a debate very slim…if not impossible.

Elder says the LWV’s chances of hosting a debate this cycle are shot as they probably couldn’t organize one before Election Day.

In short, because of the mayor’s recycled excuses and insulting everyone’s intelligence, just as in 2007, once again, the resident of Danbury are the big losers.

RELATED POSTS:

Day 25: fundraising for candidates are more important to Boughton than FREE and OPEN debates

Day 24 and no word from Boughton

Democratic Town Committee chairman weighs in on Boughton avoiding FREE and OPEN debates

News-Times to Boughton: Stop waffling on FREE and OPEN debates

Avoiding free and open debates is nothing new for Boughton

Goncalves blasts Boughton over not agreeing to open debates