Ward 1 is a hotbed for contested races this year, featuring a head to head matchup for 2 at-large council seats, the at-large school committee seat, and the ward councilor seat. In the ward seat, Maria Scibelli Greenberg is up against Franco Cedrone.
Unlike all of the other contested races, NewTV didn’t have a debate for the ward councilor race at all. Franco Cedrone declined to debate.
Last night, Josephine McNeil hosted a candidate forum for all Ward 1 candidates. Again, Maria was on hand but Franco declined to attend.
I’m putting out an open question to Franco: Why do you consistently refuse to debate?
Disclaimer: I have endorsed Maria Scibelli Greenberg in the above-mentioned race.
Interestingly, the Tab endorsed Cedrone. I don’t know much about the race, but I’d love to know the details of the endorsement despite Cedrone’s refusal to debate.
Actually, Jim, the TAB endorsed both Ward 1 candidates who failed to show for their debates.
That’s absolutely insane to me, how can you endorse someone who refuses to share and compare their policies with the public?
Jim,
Spot on!
On this one, Andy, you’ve got some explaining to do.
We brought both Franco Cedrone and Maria Greenberg in for separate, hour-long interviews. They are both very nice people; we just thought Franco was somewhat better prepared.
Jay Ciccone participated in the Neighborhood Area Councils forum I moderated at Angier. He was very engaging and more than held his own in that debate. It should be on NewTV now. Jay is very solid city councilor, IMHO.
@Andy: that’s great that he met with you. But isn’t it wrong to refuse to debate, especially for an open seat?
Andy, on this, we’ll have to disagree. I’ve found him to be very dismissive and regressive in his views, particularly as chair of PS&T. His answers at the Angier debate failed to inspire, but he did show up.
@Andy,
Just curious–did you bring in all of the candidates for separate hour-long interviews?
1) Josephine MacNeil let the W1 candidates were asked to participate in this forum 7 days prior. Expecting candidates to ignore other time commitments and show up with 1 week’s advanced notice event is an unreasonable expectation. Additionally, both Cedrone and Ciccone sent emails to MacNeil indicating neither of them was able to be there. (Greenberg showed up. Was she not informed that Cedrone would not be there? I did hear Greenberg complaining out loud, “can you believe ‘my opponent’ did not show up?” (I left after the W1AL forum. Did Greenberg spend the next half hour debating a chair; or as Barney Frank would say, “the dining room table”?:-D)
2) Andy Levin from Gatehouse Media did not give the same courtesy to the W1-AL candidates as he did with the candidates for the Ward 1 seat (even though we did one phone call fom Lorna Lovett in late August that this was their plan.) The W1AL candidates were not invited to the Gatehouse media offices for a similar purpose.
BTW, if this was such an important forum for Barsh, why did he not attend?
Correction, why did Barash not attend?
@Laura Berman – Laura Lovett contacted me about meeting with Andy on Sept 14. I responded the same day with some dates. Laura asked if Monday the 25th or Tuesday 26 would work and I said I said that would be difficult because the LWV debate was that Monday but I could try to squeeze it in before my Committee meeting later that evening. (I already had a campaign event that Tuesday). I did not hear back from her. I contacted Laura Lovett again on Oct 6th to try and reschedule and never heard anything.
I’ve participated in every debate, responded to every questionnaire and participated in a multitude of candidate events. I also sent in my Newton Tab candidate statement (which Jay did not bother with).
While I am a bit disappointed that I did not get the Tab endorsement my goal is the endorsement of my constituents at the ballot box. They are the reason I am working hard to get elected.
I might mention that I did get the Tab’s endorsement my first year running against Jay’s father, Allan Ciccone Sr. (Emily Costello was the Editor at the time). I should also mention that 2 years later Andy didn’t even bother to cover the 2015 Ward 1 election, which was the only contested ward councilor race that year. My opponent, declined to debate me in any forum (anyone see a pattern here)? When I raised my concerns to Andy, he told me that based on Al’s weak candidate statement, and his complete lack of effort to do any campaigning that they were are treating this race as “uncontested.”
Months later, Andy did apologize to me for not recognizing a contested election.