Posted by: thepinetree on 10/06/2010 10:55 PM
Updated by: thepinetree on 10/08/2010 12:05 AM
Expires: 01/01/2015 12:00 AM
:
An Explosive Night In the Old Armory. It Wasn't a Debate...But it Was A Show!~with Complete Unedited Video Enclosed (Update..Closing Open Comments)
Copperopolis, CA...The scheduled debate with Russ Thomas vs. Darren Spellman was billed as a Chamber of Commerce and Copperopolis Business Association led, organized and moderated event this evening in the Old Amory. The event went downhill and was over before it ever got started. During the candidates opening statements Candidate Spellman stated that because the Chamber Board President, Mark Luster's company, SPI had contributed to Supervisor Thomas's campaign he felt the questions may be biased. He then stated he would only answer questions from District 5 residents that were spoken to him and not written down ahead of time....
(Click Read More for Video)
This line of reasoning grew out of what Candidate Spellman felt were questions in the Rancho Calaveras debate on Monday night from attendees that were "Bused In" from outside of District 5.
The debate was slated to be moderated by Chamber Board Member Mark Gerton. Questions were emailed in and also written tonight and placed in a basket to be sorted and answered.
According to Chamber Executive Director Diane Gray, the Chamber has been doing debates and Candidates nights for years. The Chamber of Commerce is not perfect but they try hard to be open and unbiased but making all sides happy in election time is very hard. The Chamber does have known positions on being pro-business and for a business friendly local government. Both of the candidates in this race are registered Republicans.
It was a sad political night in many ways. First for the attendees who came for a debate. Second for Mr. Spellman who somehow thought that he couldn't get a fair airing tonight. Thirdly for the the Chamber who was accused of running an unfair debate.
(Update as of 10/8, We are closing down open commenting on this article. You can still log in and post but to limit the robotic spam we are stopping anonymous posts at this time.)
Below is the raw video files. The first minute or so is shaky as were getting the tripod set up.
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