Trinity United Church of Christ's Mayoral forum according to the the crowd is definitely one to remember. While the panel of Mayoral candidates were probed with intense questions, the audience sat with open mouths and ears to hear their responses. To start off--- the audience was confused at the fact that Rahm Emanuel didn't show up especially during a time such as this, as the city of Chicago has been through much corruption with politicians in the past and are "Sick and tired of being sick and tired," and want their questions answered. However, those who were prepared to question the Mayoral panelist said that the show must go on. Once the question session began, the forum took a positive spin. But immediately took a negative turn when Patricia Van Pelt-Watkins answered one of the questions with a response that included some information about Carol Moseley Braun's pass track record, Braun---took Watkins response as fighting words and fired back with a personal response reminding Watkins and the audience of her many years of public service in which during this time Watkins was out getting high off of crack. This was in church in front of the altar as children sat with their parents participating in the political process. Now the question is---"Do we need this type of leadership?" The audience stood up in confusion and awe wondering how someone running for Mayor could help clean up a city in turmoil and respond in such a way. During this time Watkins looked Braun in the eyes and Miguel del Valle interceded in order to stop what was about to be a fight and began to turn the energy around in a positive way with positive encouraging words about Watkins.
Miguel del Valle who was endorsed by the Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization (IVI-IPO) decided to further encourage Watkins to participate and not to be discouraged. De Valle explained that he thinks that Watkins has a great plan to contribute to the city, and added that he thought that Watkins had one of the best plans as it pertains to helping ex-offenders to be re-employed and re-tooled for the work force by coming up with second chance programs. Amongst the six candidates running for Mayor, Gery Chico, William Walls, Patricia Van Pelt-Watkins, Carol Moseley Braun and Miguel del Valle showed up to tell the people who they are and why they feel that they are the best candidate to clean up the city of Chicago. Questions like: What is each candidates perspective on small businesses and how will they help small businesses succeed? What each candidates perspective on Charter schools, Magnet schools and Public schools are and how will they deal with the situation that our youth are forced to deal with in not being able to attend their neighborhood schools? And how each candidate would go about getting the crime rate down and keeping young men off of the streets and from killing one another? While each candidate had good but similar responses, the audience seemed to be looking for more. Each candidate had 90 seconds, which was plenty of time based on the usually 60 second response time. Most of the responses were based on some of the works that each candidate has already contributed based on their positions that they hold currently, however anyone who lives in the city of Chicago knows and understands that the city needs much more than what has already been given. The education system needs a complete revamping and fixing, the recidivism rate needs lots of attention, our streets and bridges need fixing, we need transparent government that will allow the people to have a voice and their voices to be heard by solving our cities problems, it's important that our youth are heard based upon their needs in education and as well it needs to be understood why they are killing one another and how these problems can be solved, and from the looks of it--it certainly isn't going to take fighting words, people calling other peoples ideas dumb, forgetting about equal education and giving an ex-offender, with out the proper education and rehabilitation--a job and according to many---jail certainly isn't rehabilitation for anyone, it's going to take hands on, ground work and lots of love. Which candidate will be willing to do such, will it be Carol, Miquel, William, Gery or Patricia? Find out by listening to the full Mayoral forum yourself and you be the judge. It's time to clean up the city for the future of the youth.
For Information On The Footage Of The Mayoral Forum Contact: Trinity United Church Of Christ at 773-962-5650
Posted By: Talibah Bakhit
Monday, January 31st 2011 at 3:05PM
You can also
click
here to view all posts by this author...
