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As I wrote previously, I was invited to participate in a Forum Onslow – Meet the Candidates for City Council.  The Forum will be held Tuesday, October 13 at 6:00 p.m. and will be in the City Council Chambers.  It will be filmed by G-10.  They will ask every Candidate the same three questions to begin and then will have “fish bowl” questions.

Today I received the questions:

1. What is your vision for the City of Jacksonville?
2. What is the most important initiative the City Council can take to attract businesses to Jacksonville?
3. The City has been authorized to enact a new occupancy tax with a portion of the revenue restricted for promotion and another portion available for projects to attract tourists to the City.  How should the City invest that unrestricted portion of the revenue?

I’ll be working on my answers in the following days.  I really like the format that allows for candidates to be prepared.  I hate formats that require candidates to think quickly on their feet–it’s just not applicable to the task at hand.  Candidates, if elected, will be required to be deliberate through the governmental process.  They won’t be tasked with making spot decisions–that’s the job of managers and other staff.  Asking random questions just puts people on the spot and results in weak answers that are more often designed to sound good (or perhaps sound the least bad).

I also asked the City to give me some information on the issue raised in question three.  The response was prompt and they provided me with enough material to get started.

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