Wilmington Mayor Debate — WHYY Event

WHYY hosted their debate featuring the Democratic primary contenders for Wilmington Mayor Tuesday night (8/14) at U of D. This debate was the culmination of a process where WHYY hosted multiple forums around the city to get input from people in the city as to what questions they would specifically want candidates to address. The actual debate was about an hour long, maybe a little more because of some technical glitch at the beginning. The venue was maybe 60% full, with little pockets of each candidate’s partisans. Most of the debates have featured a gauntlet outside of the door with lots of folks running for office looking to shake hands and hand you some literature. This one had Dave Brady (running against Harris McDowell in S1) and a woman handing out literature for Paul Gallagher.

WHYY recorded this debate for broadcast, and it will be on their station Aug 17th @ 5pm; Aug 19th @ 11am; and Aug 20th @ 5pm & 11pm. In addition, WHYY live-tweeted this event and you can see that here at Newsworks.org. They’ve also helpfully provided a good summary of the questions they asked in that piece. And Rob Tornoe’s sketches of the candidates from that evening are also posted there — those are great, as usual. TNJ largely focuses on the jabs traded by some of the candidates and provides an interesting contrast to the Newsworks coverage.

Some observations from the questions asked:

Question 1 was asked of all the candidates. Our voter forums identified a new police chief as one of the first changes a new mayor should make to fight crime. What qualifications would you look for in a new police chief?

Williams, Kelley and Montgomery had similar answers here.. Kelley specifically wants to hire a new Chief with commitment to Community Policing and Spencer wants the new Chief to make the creation of a Homicide unit a priority. Both Montgomery and Bovell specifically stated that they wanted to make sure that current WPD officers could be considered for Chief, while Williams categorically stated it would be someone from the outside.

Question 2 was asked of candidates Dennis P. Williams, Bill Montgomery and Kevin Kelley. Citizens at our forums were clear that just throwing money at the crime problem doesn’t fix it. So they ask, short of hiring more police, what other solutions do you think can be implemented to combat crime?

Instead of answering the question, Williams came out of the block telling everyone that Scott Spencer doesn’t know anything about policing and that Montgomery hasn’t been able to manage the problem for almost 12 years. Further, he repeats his campaign mantra about crime — that he’s going to get the police to go after the criminals and get them. He throws in some ideas about targeting repeat offenders, but he does this without acknowledging that the WPD does this ALREADY. WPD arrests ALOT of people and they have had a program of monitoring and targeting high-risk offenders for almost two years now. I’m going to have some more to say about this in another post, but I’m hoping that Wilmingtonians are not impressed by this belligerence masquerading as a crime plan. We deserve a better response. Kelley walks through his ideas about using CitiStat and implementing real community policing. Montgomery notes that Community Policing is a good idea, but we have to reduce calls for service (approx 100K calls/ year) to free up officers to be in neighborhoods. He talked about the High Point strategy (he calls it Safe Neighborhoods Initiative, I think), as a success in other areas, as a way to give some folks a way out of a life of crime and as something that can be implemented with little money. Spencer notes that the rules of probable cause would prevent the nonstop arresting that Williams wants to do and again talks about a city homicide unit as well as rewards for information.

Question 3 was asked of all the candidates. In our forums, voters expressed concerns about Wilmington’s economy and how that affects city neighborhoods. They want to know what geographic priorities you have for economic development that goes beyond areas such as Market Street, the Riverfront and Trolley Square.

Spencer notes that the details of his plan are up on the web. But he would work with the state and county economic development folks and he would target Concord Ave, Vandever Ave and Union St for further development. He would also champion set-asides to make sure neighborhoods were invested in. Bovell repeats his vacant properties plan, creating affordable housing and giving people a stake in the city. Williams skated over this answer glibly talking about combining resources, but of what I didn’t quite get. He noted that he would target West Center City for further development. Montgomery highlights creating jobs and not pitting one neighborhood against another. Kelley cycles back to safety first — need to crete a safe space for businesses and customers to be and he would implement the West Side Grows plan.

Question 4 was asked of candidates Bill Montgomery, Scott Spencer and Kevin Kelley. How can Wilmington develop a workforce with the right skill sets for 21st century jobs? In a related question, we know that as mayor, you wouldn’t have direct control over city schools, but what kind of leadership role would you play with regard to education?

Kelley wants to “change the system” and work with the county and the state to develop better schools. He also wants to work with non-profits and churches to develop re-entry programs. Montgomery wants to meet regularly with school administration to improve schools.Spencer notes that the city spends money on economic development but none on education. He wants to support HB244, requiring school attendance until the age of 18 and wants to work towards a consolidated school district. He also wants to include set-asides to city contracts for youth employment. This question is asked frequently and these candidates really need to step up here, I think. The city controls no schools and I don’t think they should (yet), but this is a genuine crisis and issue in the city and needs someone to lead the fight.

Question 5 was asked of all candidates. We had seven different discussion groups at our three voter forums, and each one spoke of the need to improve the city’s image. After your first four years in office, what would be the one biggest change a visitor would notice in the city?

Williams says he would cleanup the city and he would make City employees friendlier — employees would treat people who come to the city for service as customers. This largely addresses how city government image might be reoriented, but not the city itself, I think. Kelley gets back to safety again — the city’s image would improve if it were more safe and cleaner. He discussed his TAG Team concept for neighborhood improvement and would work at finding ways to draw more people into more parts of the city. Montgomery says that we all have to stop being so negative abut the city (seriously) and the Mayor would need to be a cheerleader for the city. He also talked about the city getting on a stronger financial footing. Spencer talked about addressing jobs, crime and neighborhoods. Bovell wants to reduce blight, attract more jobs and provide outlets for kids.

Question 6 was asked of candidates Robert Bovell, Dennis P. Williams and Bill Montgomery. What changes would you make to the current tax system and, in your view, can you balance the city budget without raising taxes?

Bovell says the city can trim the fat in city government and he would cut each department by 5%. He thinks that his vacant property plan will generate alot of money and he will not raise taxes. Williams says that the city has raised taxes over the last 4 years by 25%, says that people are tired of paying taxes, waves at public/private partnerships, says he’ll cut salaries, remove cars. Kelley says no to 15% tax increase and promises to find efficiencies and to consolidate some departments/functions. He would ask the unions for the room for more efficiencies and he would eliminate cars, some of the consultant contracts he voted against. Montgomery says YES to a tax increase and seems to say that after eliminating 100 positions of the last 4 years that there is no more low-hanging fruit. He says that to get further cuts, more jobs have to be cut. He made an accusation that his opponents don’t know what they were talking about, but Bill still hasn’t said why the 15% is needed nor has he explained why this would be the only one.

Question 7 was asked of Bill Montgomery, Scott Spencer and Robert Bovell. Voters in our forums want to know where you plan to find the money for your top one or two priorities.

Montgomery would properly kick off his Safe Communities initiative and implement a 311 call center. He claims that neither would need alot of money, and that he’s give up some of the patronage positions in the Mayor’s office to help pay for the 311 center. Spencer would prioritize a Homicide Unit and a light rail link that would link up the Riverfront and Market St. He would get DelDOT to cancel their plans for a new bridge from 13 over to the Riverfront and divert the money to the light rail system. Bovell would address vacant properties and would prioritize making sure people and contractors in Wilmington would be first up for city contracts and work. Kelley notes that the city doesn’t need more consultants. He also observes that Montgomery went to Dover to get $1.6M for his plan back in the spring and couldn’t get it — but that also shows that Safe Neighborhoods would cost money.

Final statements were telling — Williams used his final statement to largely insult his opponents again. He’s done this everytime I’ve seen him. Kelley talks about getting back to neighborhoods to reenergize the city, critiques some of the candidates (non insulting). Montgomery talks about respect, but questions the qualifications, lack of leadership and inexperience of his opponents. Spencer reads pretty much the same statement that he does. Bovell tells people to look at the experience of the candidates — the split between government only experience vs. private sector (mostly) experience of the candidates.

My impressions — everyone one of these candidates is getting better at the optics of this. The questions asked were some of the best I’ve heard so far — mostly because these are the kind of things me and my neighbors are most interested in. To that end, I really have to give alot of credit to the WHYY and Newsworks folks who worked hard again at getting to the kind of issues that it seems that people will be voting on. Like I said when they did this (around the Senate race mostly) in 2010, we need more of this kind of community-driven news gathering. If you can call a debate news gathering.

Williams is still trying to skate by with sound bites and attitude it looks to me. Kelley keeps sharpening up his messages around neighborhoods and safety. Montgomery is definitely engaging better, but is still not explaining either why we need a 15% tax increase or why this is a one and done or why this is only property taxes instead of wage taxes too. He repeats a thought about not pitting neighborhoods against one another, even though that is not happening now. What is happening is that people who are being routinely asked to pay for shortfalls watch a great deal of money being spent in places other than our neighborhoods. Spencer is still working on his ideas without providing a good explanation of the benefits of these. Light rail is really interesting, but why would you need a light rail for the Riverfront and Market St? A light rail system that might go from someplace in northern NCCo to the Riverfront could move alot more people and provide a bigger economic bang for your buck. Bovell wants you to know that fixing up vacant properties and getting them into the hands of owners would be a game changer. The city badly needs more homeowners who live in their houses, but the vast majority of the vacant properties in the city do not belong to the city. So voters would need to know something about how he is going to get clear title to these properties without major court battles, where the money comes from to renovate them and if you plan to sell them or give them away. His focus on getting some of the spending being done by the City specifically try to done with Wilmingtonians is a good idea though.

As noted, WHYY will broadcast this debate Aug 17th @ 5pm; Aug 19th @ 11am; and Aug 20th @ 5pm & 11pm. I’m going to be interested to see if the experience of viewing this on TV vs viewing it in person changes my impressions.

What did you think? And I hope you watch it and come back to post your impressions.