Mason County Candidate Forums 2012

[XLFD]

Congratulations to WMOM who earlier today announced that they, along with Mason County Press' Lisa Enos, would be hosting the first candidates forum of the county election season on Monday July 23rd at 7pm at the Scottville Clown Band Shell. The event will cover all competitive races like Sheriff, Probate Judge, County Commissioner races, and County Treasurer.

In a typical forum format, each candidate will be allowed a 4minute introduction followed by 10 minutes of Q&A interaction with the audience.

Topics that will be covered include; Law enforcement policy, leadership, responsible use of tax money, budgeting, vision-and goals, integration of road commission into county government and progress on the Lake Winds Energy Park plus more.

Meanwhile, the City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews) announced three days previously that they would be holding a forum on Tuesday July 31 at 7 p.m. at the Kiwanis Band Shell in City Park, downtown Ludington.

Candidates for sheriff and Mason County Board of Commissioners would be featured as those races will be settled in the primary election.

In addition, representatives of the Oakview millage proposal and the senior citizen millage proposal would be offered a time to explain the requests. 

No mention of any opponents to either millage proposal being present, so enjoy the doomsday scenarios presented by Oakview and the Senior Citizen Center representatives without any moderation.  But the ironic part of this forum is that it is being held at some place other than Ludington City Hall.

One must remember the COLDNews held a forum in October of last year for City candidates that was held at the City Hall.  One of the candidates was barred from City Hall due to an active letter of trespass.  The letter was administered through a unique-to-Ludington Workplace Safety Policy which allows the City Manager of Ludington to ban anyone from any public property in Ludington without any due process.  This ban apparently had to do with the citizen making too many FOIA requests over too many sensitive topics. 

 

But WMOM was not precise in their report.  Back on Saturday, July 7, 2012, the Ludington Torch sent out E-questionaires to the various candidates for local office to be completed by July 22, 2012 and therefore will effectively be the first forum featuring these candidates.  Six questions were given to each of the candidates with E-mail addresses (two sitting commissioners do not have E-mail addresses made public-- they should be voted out simply on that basis).  Four questions were given to the County Treasurer and Surveyor candidates.  Does anyone else have the surveyor candidates lined up (no pun intended)? 

Replies are trickling in, but I don't expect 100% compliance, particularly when some of the incumbents in the County Commission will not be able to find a rubber stamp to answer some of the questions.  We will do our best to answer for them by using their voting records and prior stances.  Almost all of the local competitions other than the probate judge race will be decided on Tuesday, August 7, 2012 by a mere fraction of the people that will vote in November.  This is as a result of almost all candidates being labelled Republicans. 

 

Would countywide elections be better off if they became non-partisan?  When most offices are settled in an August primary with low voter turnout, and when beaten incumbents are lame ducks for about a half year is this good for democracy?  And why have the candidates for office (beyond the sheriff candidates) not bothered to get any message out about themselves until these fora?  Is this what democracy is about?  I have absolutely no idea why any of these non-incumbents are running or what they stand for. 

 

 

[Marty Redman]

As a visitor to your fair area, I was a bit turned off this year.  First those wind turbines **sigh** how smart is it to despoil your biggest draw to the area, the natural beauty.  Also here it was the Fourth of July and the parade was stuffed with political candidates and every public thoroughfare was stuffed with political signs. 

I was very tempted to white out the 'g' at the end of the Rich Morong signs to turn it into Rich Moron, but I don't know the guy personally.  I suggest you do whatever it takes to get all these contests pushed back to November.  Maybe consider taking the turbines down between Memorial and Labor Day too.

[XLFD]

I feel your aesthetic pains, Marty. 

Just wait until the local politicos put in that expensive sidewalk leading from the end of Ludington Avenue to the breakwall, if you like what they're doing with the area.  Improving the natural beauty of Mason County and Ludington once again. 

[AQUAMAN]

I've heard that reference too Marty, towards Morong I mean, but, in the spirit of green, I must say, tonight I witnessed the surge/view of the wind turbines from the big lake on shore,... disturbing and annoying is the thoughts that come to mind first. These are MAMMOTHS on the horizon, and I guess you have to see it to believe it, from the water, as well as US-31 near Kinney Rd..

[Willy]

I beg you X, don't call those giant industrial turbines a "park". I know that's what Consumers calls it but they only named it that because they wanted people to have nice thoughts about it. I've never heard them call their nuclear plant a "atom park" or their coal fired plants "coal gardens". It's so insulting to have consumers use those slimy mental games on us. Wind park, wind farm, what a load of bullsh-t they have sold us. I will bet 5 cents when the wind turbine people were thinking how they would sell this to us idiots they had teams of specialists who researched words that would convince people we were seeing something other than what's been shoved up our rears. Just like the king with no clothes. Regarding the parade, I to was sick of the politicians in the parade but since we had kids present I held back my heckling {which I usually do} and put up with the shameful display. As far as the wind turbines I don't believe even half of them are installed yet. 57 or 58 is going to be the total and wait until they start spinning and the aviation lights are turned on. I'm going to miss my weekly excursions into the orchards and hills. And these won't be the last of them because Consumers obtained a whole bunch of leases in Mason county and I'm sure they're not going to reveal their next project until they are ready to install them. They don't want to put up with all the pesty residents who don't like what they are doing.

[XLFD]

Sorry, Willy, I effectively copied and pasted from the WMOM website and left their original wording.  They seem partial to the wind turbines for now since they run plenty of ads for Consumer's, but we may see their tune change when they get these things a-turning and it begins to interfere with their radio signal emanating from Riverton Twp.  More towers are going up everyday, they are moving from the north to the south, having put in a couple more lines.