The Committee for Responsible Development, a RightSize Newton group that organized in opposition to the Northland plan announced it was backing out of the forum, citing bias, the league’s choice of moderator and the way the forum was organized, Newton Patch reports.
UPDATE: Here’s a statement released Tuesday afternoon from the LWV …
League of Women Voters of Newton For Immediate Release: February 11, 2020
The League of Women Voters of Newton has scheduled an event to inform Newton voters about the Northland Development Project Referendum. The forum will be held Thursday, February 13th from 7:00 – 8:30 p.m. at the Durant Kenrick House, 286 Waverley Avenue.
Consistent with its long-standing practice, the League invited representatives from both sides of the issue — in this case, the Committee for Responsible Development and Yes for Newton’s Future — to present their views and to participate in an open conversation. The goal of this forum is to provide information to residents in order to help them to make an informed decision.
Both the Committee for Responsible Development and Yes for Newton’s Future initially accepted the League’s invitation to participate, and unfortunately, the Committee for Responsible Development has since announced in a statement released February 10th that they will not be participating in the event.
The LWVN regrets that the Committee for Responsible Development has decided to withdraw from the event but will proceed as planned in fairness to the other participants and those planning to attend. We look forward to an informative session on Thursday evening.
The LWVN has compiled a summary of the Northland Project based upon information available through the City of Newton’s Planning Department. This summary will be shared at the February 13th forum and is available at www.lwvnewton.org .
Well that’s unfortunate. As anyone whose watched any of these League sponsored debates over the years knows, these events are primarily guilty of being so neutral in the name of fairness that they put you to sleep. But really, if you believe in your position you should be able to go before any audience to defend it.
On the other hand this is the same group that declined invitations to meet with Northland, so maybe it’s not too surprising.
Also, we’ve repeatedly invited Right Size to submit a guest column to Village 14 and they’ve declined.
The last person to do that was Rena Getz and we all know how that worked out for her.
Wrote it before and again now: Right Size Newton and its legal representatives are not acting nor responding in good faith and should, therefore, in the standards of their choosing, be considered “hostile”.
Calling an ugly duckling that isn’t mean when the creature referred to is, in fact, ugly.
LWV members can and have taken positions on Northland because it is a non partisan local issue and not an election.
It’s shameful LWV picked someone that has been advocating for the project to be “the moderator” and also let them choose the questions! I can’t think of a more bias format.
And since Right Size won’t speak for themselves, David can you tell us why they refused to meet with Northland?
I agree that both sides should participate with a Moderator that is completely neutral.
One could find a Moderator from a neighboring town that is unaffiliated with the project.
Thanks @Greg.
Agree with @Peter. It will be interesting to see of the Newton League of Women Voters addresses why they didn’t want to go with an impartial moderator in the statement they issue today.
Also, curious why the League is moving away from direct questioning by audience members. They invited questions from the audience at two Ward 3 Candidate debates (At-large and Ward races) held at the Newton Senior Center this past fall just before the election.
Questions asked by voters themselves with an opportunity for follow-ups if needed were excellent at both debates.
@Richard Heald: The Ward 3 Debate that you reference was sponsored the Ward 3 Democratic City Committee, and was very well run and unbiased. The LWV sponsored the very effective TV debates in partnership with NewTV. The organizer and moderator have little to do with content and the exchanges once the debate is underway.
I rarely agree with Jim Cote, but when he’s right, he’s right!
(All views expressed are solely my own)
Thanks @Jim.
Apologies for my confusion and appreciate you continuing to help educate a constituent.
I am now hopeful another organization will step in to offer impartial moderation and direct, unfiltered audience questioning for this forum.
This thread has been updated above with a statement from the LWV Newton (above)
So it just occurs to me that the people who are complaining in this case are many of the same people who initially thought it would be OK to have members of right size newton moderate debates between city council candidates.
If this isn’t the pot calling the kettle black I don’t know what it is.
@Bryan Barash – Yes that’s true. That was not a good idea and I don’t think this is a good idea either. A basic rule of any debate should be a moderator who has no obvious allegiance to either side (or candidate). I do know that in the past the League has regularly brought in outside moderators for that reason … and it would seem to be appropriate here.
Right Size Newton is claiming the LVW moderator is biased, but given other problematic claims and demands that they have made, I am not convinced that the moderator is in fact biased. Right Size also criticized having questions from the audience written down and handed to the moderator, but that is not unusual. It was the method used in LWV-run candidate forums that I’ve attended in past years.
In short, Right Size refuses to accept any decisions they don’t like–from the November 2019 elections that didn’t include most of their anti-development slate of candidates for city council to longstanding practices in how a LVW forum is run. That refusal is uncivil and immature behavior, like a child overturning a game board when losing. What’s especially frustrating is that we all have to pay for it: $50K that I for one would rather see spent on city services.
I think it’s important to vote YES on the Northland project, BOTH because it’s a good project for Newton’s future (and the best deal we’re likely to get) AND because we need to send a message to the Right Size group that their incivilities won’t let them have things their own way.
For the city councilor debates the LWV usually brings in somebody from a neighboring League to moderate.
The Patch didn’t fully report out our press release. For those interested you can find it https://rightsize2020.org/2020/02/11/league-of-women-voters-newton-forum-on-northland-is-biased/
@Newton Upper Falls Resident – I too have had some frustrations with Right Size Newton, specifically the fact that they never seem to have anyone clearly speaking for them (note the anonymous spokesperson in the Patch article above), they never seem to clearly articulate what exactly they are fighting FOR rather than against (see their web site), and they seem to avoid engaging with groups and forums that aren’t already in agreement with them.
That said, I disagree with your criticism. If the proposed moderator, League president Marcia Johnson, has indeed been publicly and actively supporting the Northland project than I think they are not being unreasonable in objecting and the League should easily be able to recruit a non-involved moderator from elsewhere, as they so often do for their candidate debates.
I do agree with you though that objecting to written comments is a bit unreasonable.
As for the referendum itself, I particularly disagree with your criticism. We have a legal process explicitly written into the City Charter intended for just this purpose. Despite the fact that I disagree with them on the issue, this is a group of highly motivated citizens, actively engaged in our political process. They mobilized, gathered signatures, met all the requirements under the charter to have a City Council vote that they disagreed with brought to the voters. They did exactly what engaged citizens, who feel passionately that the City Council vote was wrong, are supposed to do under the charter. Frankly I was amazed that they pulled it off in the time they did coming up to Christmas during bad weather.
So criticize the charter provision or work to have it changed if you like but I think its unfair to criticize the group for exercising their democratic right under the charter.
All that said, I’ll be voting Yes on March 3
Simon. Thanks for linking to your release. Now that I’ve seen it, I agree with Jerry; it looks bad for the LWV if Marcia Johnson was going to moderate this. But the written questions is pretty common with this organization.
It’s a shame both sides aren’t participating with an unaffiliated moderator.
The Globe has an update on this.
The Yes campaign was eager to participate in a debate since we believe the project is so compelling. It’s unfortunate that we won’t have both sides in the room at the League’s event Thursday night.
I had expected the area councils would also pull a debate together and was happy to participate in that one as well. Anyone know why one wasn’t organized?
We now have stories on Patch, The Globe and Wicked Local Newton about this how event will not include Right Size. Fair enough. It’s a significant development especially considering that there seem to be no other events planned and I think the League made a mistake by making Marcia Johnson the moderator.
I’d like to now challenges the teams at all three news sites to focus as much energy writing about the projects’ pros and cons which would actually help undecided voters make an informed decision on March 3. Not just, “he said” “she said” but stories that really provide some analysis.
I could care less who debates. This entire referendum is a waste of time. Can’t wait til 3/3. Warren gets eliminated and NO wins.
1. Whether you like/agree with Rena or not, she had the guts to run and didn’t deserve the cheap shot.
2. Since Margaret’s initial comment about the LWV forum it appears we actually have some middle ground about Marcia named the moderator and how that can be perceived as walking into an ambush. Probably too late for this, but how about asking Councilor Norton or Kalis to co-moderate? @Allison, would you be cool with that?
3. There is someone posting as Larry Gottesdiener from Waban on NextDoor. With every comment/post, it would appear the account is managed by a third party (his PR firm?), although I could be proven wrong. Regardless, the topic of a meeting with RSN came up. I won’t repeat what’s already been discussed on this blog – perspective from both sides – but I did ask if he would be willing to meet with RSN now. #crickets
4. It’s telling that there has never been a “no” post about Northland by anyone who RUNS V14 – only guest posts. It’s not unlike Marcia Johnson moderating the LWV forum and the analogy of an ambush. You guys really want to know why I comment on V14 about this stuff? That is why, even it means taking a bunch of shots in the process. Someone has to stick up for the underdog. If the general tone on V14 was more neutral, I’d be just another anonymous Asian dude walking about in Newton.
Lastly, is it me or as we get closer to March 3rd this feels more and more like 2016? We can replace “lock her up” with “NIMBY” and “fake news” with “misinformation”. Truly sad.
** Actually (come to think of it) I first started posting on V14 in support of the marijuana vote and today I’m on the same side as Lisa Gordon on RSN. So maybe someday we can all be friends again. 🙂
My understanding on why the area councils did not get an event put together is that it was to logistically challenging to get a time, location, moderator, and availability of both sides that made sense. I was not actively involved in the area council effort but did receive several updates and had ideas run by me. This is an extremely quick election cycle giving very very limited time to organize and a very limited numbers of dates that could make sense. It doesn’t help that two of the prime weekends for holding a debate are at the ends of school vacation week and therefore many people will be away.
The area councils also have a harder time organizing events than private groups because any decision that requires the approval of an area council, such as the decision to support holding a debate or to appropriate money to pay for one, must be made in person at an open public meeting. The area council election debates normally take several months to organize and we could not get an event authorized and organized in the limited time available.
@ Nathaniel
Thank you for posting this.
As the Treasurer for the Committee For Responsible Development we asked the various area councils to see if it they would be able to put together a debate if the election was on Super Tuesday.
They all responded saying it was tight. Our city council in the meanwhile, went full steam ahead. They had no interest in an informed debate on this subject.
Lets face it, if the referendum wins, it would mean 17 of our 24 councilors are not representative of the citizens of newton.