emergent ink

Last Saturday I won the Candlewood Lions annual Chili Contest (individual category). This is a big deal for me and makes up for my lack of a Nobel Peace Prize for now. If you missed it, you missed a lot of great chili.

The Chili Contest is an annual event. Every two years it’s a little bigger because the candidates for local elections get to compete in a non-political venue.

There are only two real chances for the people of New Fairfield to see the candidates side by side. One of them is this Chili Contest. The other is the debate.

This year, there’s just the Chili Contest.

That’s because Monika Thiel and Tom Corbett pulled out of the debate last Monday (September 28).

They did it because they said a “bias-free, independent” debate was impossible.

Art Azzarito, who is running for Selectman by himself, withdrew as well.

We’ve had these debates every two years for decades, and this is the first time we’ve had any trouble. That’s a shame.

Here’s what the Democratic candidate for First Selectman, Monika Thiel, told the Danbury News-Times:

“New Fairfield is a small town, and a lot of folks are familiar with what’s going on around here. Because of their relationships and associations with town government, we felt it would be appropriate to have an independent party involved.”

It’s a good thing Thiel and her running mate, Tom Corbett, didn’t apply the same logic to the Chili Contest.

After all, New Fairfield is a small town, and a lot of folks know each other.

I agree with Thiel that “a lot of folks are familiar with what’s going on around here.” Where we differ is, I don’t see it as a bad thing.

Maybe Thiel and Corbett would have preferred holding the Chili Contest in Brookfield.

Before negotiations broke down, they wanted to bring in the Brookfield League of Women Voters to moderate the debate.

Even if the League moderated the debate, timekeepers and questions would still be handled as they always have, and the whole debate would be organized by the same people that Thiel accused of bias: Ellen Burnett and Cheryl Reedy.

That’s one reason I have for believing that Thiel and Corbett never had any intention to participate in the debate.

The other reason is an email Thiel sent to Burnett on September 22, a week before the “negotiations” “broke down”.

In it, Thiel asked whether Citizen News still planned to run a feature story on the Democratic candidates, “because, as you know, we are not going to participate in the currently proposed live candidate’s forum. Originally, I had the impression that the feature stories would only be about candidates who participate in the live debate.”

There is no mention at all by Thiel of the possibility of the debate coming together in any form, even though Burnett and Reedy were still hoping that Thiel and Corbett were negotiating in good faith as late as September 28.

So the debate is off. That means that we voters lose our best opportunity to learn what Thiel and Corbett have to offer, besides chili. All that’s left is to watch how the candidates run their campaigns.

We already know what the Republican team is offering: two more years of John Hodge, this time with Susan Chapman as his running mate.

Hodge is running on his achievements and low taxes over the past four years. His campaign has been putting ads in the paper listing those achievements and their vision for New Fairfield.

And we know where Azzarito stands: he doesn’t like John Hodge.

[Azzarito's campaign manager is Roger C. Wise. Wise ran against Hodge two years ago, and is one of the forces behind all of the "Heave Hodge" signs around town. Wise is also responsible for the Heave Hodge website.]

Up to this point, if you want to know where Thiel/Corbett stand on anything, all you have had are a few letters to the editor and the answers to the first two “Ask the Candidates” questions.

There is a website and a couple of press releases. One says that the theme for the campaign is Community, Integrity and Cooperation. In the other, Thiel mentions “a lack of civility” and a pledge “to apply their best efforts to reach out to and communicate with New Fairfield residents about things that matter to them.”

Last week, they pulled out of the debate, and ran an attack ad.

It was a cartoon making fun of Hodge.

So much for Community, Integrity and Cooperation and so much for civility.

The debate debacle suggests a lack of negotiating skills. It also suggests a desire to avoid a challenge, a fear of questions.

If you’re only willing to answer questions asked by disinterested outsiders, how will you govern?

What’s going to happen the first time one of those small town folks familiar with what’s going on around here asks you a hard question?

There is no vision. There are no ideas for the future of the town, except that we need to plan more. They can’t even run a campaign, and they want to run a town.

At least Thiel and Corbett showed up for the Chili Contest.

Azzarito didn’t. Probably because the event took place in the Senior Center, which managed to get constructed without his help.

It’s unlikely that the Committee to Elect Monika Thiel and Tom Corbett is going to take any of this constructively. I am, after all, tremendously biased.

My biggest bias is that I love this town and want what’s best for it.

A couple of months ago I came to an agreement with Ellen Burnett that I would not write about local politics until after the November election. There was no real reason for doing this. Maybe we hoped that it might reduce the complaints from a small group of people who are of the opinion that I am not entitled to an opinion because it’s not their opinion.

This might seem unreasonable to you, that I should limit my subject matter because of a few unhappy individuals.

A newspaper should be the voice of the entire community it serves. Ellen Burnett and the staff of Citizen News have always taken that responsibility very seriously.

I’m biased about those things, too. But that doesn’t make them less true.