[This is more of a behind the scenes post than anything.]
Now that the council filing period has closed the City of Greensboro has started acting on the policy that candidate requests will be shared with all other candidates. I first mentioned that I was not a fan of this practice on June 10, and here is one of the reasons I gave,
“In all honesty, I’m not a fan of this process at all. It basically means that you could have candidate A doing lots of work, and candidate B, C, and D reaping the benefits.”
I received a packet in the mail on Wednesday containing two sets of information: one item is something I had requested and another was presumably something another candidate requested. The packet also came with a note reminding candidates that information was going to be shared amongst the field.
I gave Bob Morgan a call yesterday to once again voice my opinion on the policy and he explained that the goal is to avoid any type of favoritism. That is great, but this is an election where people are spending lots of time and lots of money towards winning. If a candidate is doing their homework there efforts shouldn’t be proactively shared with other folks. Sure that information should be kept on file and if another candidate requests the same info it will be readily available. That, to me, seems like the right thing to do.
I suggested to Bob that if this is going to continue that the City start emailing the paperwork to candidates. He seemed to think that was a good suggestion so hopefully that will be implemented.
Where the line is drawn here? If we are all for sharing, should current candidates not be receiving all of the same information that current council members are receiving?
One would imagine that citizens would want to elect candidates that are researching and proactively trying to learn things… rather than those that are being spoon fed the information.
Oh, and one last thought. If we are really trying to share information, should all requests not be sent to candidates? Reason being is that it will only be a matter of time, if it isn’t happening already, that candidates will start having others make request on their behalf.
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Ryan…is this a “snow job?” by the city in the guise of transparency? Because of incumbents being candidates? Here we go again. Not only that, but those candidates who are incumbents, will get most of the information and resources, before the candidates do. How does that quantify the logic of equalization of/for information?
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