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October 13, 2007
Brainerd residents seek answers from District 10 candidates
As a follow-up to Thursday night's post, here are some more details from the Brainerd debate.
The audience wrote questions on index cards, and though I had a small stack of those to start with, quite a few more were handed to me throughout. The first one I read, which resulted in the candidates' stark disagreement over the current state of area schools, cited former Sen. Ward Crutchfield's apparent inability, despite his long tenure and leadership positions, to do anything about the fact that Hamilton County was dead last in state education funding until the recent BEP changes. The questioner pointedly asked how, as an incoming freshmen, either of these candidates could do any better.
Brock led off with his remark that the schools are miserable, not just in Hamilton County, but across the state. He cited top-heavy education department administrations as partially responsible for the fact that not enough dollars get into the classroom. Berke of course saw the state of schools differently (he is a heavily involved parent at a successful magnet school), but agreed that funds should be funneled to the classrooms better than they are currently.
[much more to be inserted here as I have time to write]
Some of the most powerful and surprising testimony came after I announced that the attendees had overwhelmingly identified crime reduction and an increased police presence as the number one issue facing Brainerd, and asked each candidate to address residents' concerns.
Berke postulated that by giving people a sense of hope and opportunity, the government can help alleviate the conditions that lead to criminal behaviors.
Brock's take on crime was a bit different. He cited drugs as the number one contributor, and said that by controlling illicit drug sales, authorities are able to limit the effectiveness of gangs. He also imparted his view that illegal immigrants contribute heavily to an increase in crime wherever they live, and feels that by cracking down on undocumented migrants and requiring English to be the sole language of government, this would help stem the crime problem.
By the way, the plan was for me to record the entire event, and thus not only have the full audio for recollection's sake, but to be able to edit it down into a nice happy podcast. Alas, not one, but two purchases aimed at making that a reality turned out to be mistakes. Remind me to tell you sometime about how certain uniformed assistants with "squad" in their company name were not able to perform a simple Google search (and yes, I admit that I should have done so before going to the store, but they should have been able to provide an answer to a relatively simple question).
State Senate Elections | By joe lance | 08:08 PM