Eureka Candidate Forum

I actually managed to watch the Eureka City Council Candidate Forum on KEET last night. Just a few observations, some that have already been made elsewhere:

Of the four candidates, I'll agree Linda Atkins came out tops as far as presentation, composure and looking most comfortable in front of the camera. That's just appearances, not substance.

Polly Endert seemed comfortable, as well, a did a fine job overall. Both Frank Jager and George Clark seemed a bit nervous under the lights and gave short generic answers for the most part. I was surprised to see Frank appear as nervous as he did.

Then some specific issues that got my attention:

I'll admit to being a somewhat reluctant supporter of Polly. I can only think of two votes she made that had an impact on me: Establishment of mandatory garbage service in Eureka and the smoking ban on the boardwalk. I strongly opposed both of them, especially so the latter. Polly voted for both of them.

I wasn't happy with her votes but figured that maybe she was just following along the other council members, especially Larry Glass. I figured I'd give her the benefit of the doubt and that she'd still be the better choice that Atkins since Polly doesn't have any agenda- left or right- guiding her.

Her comment about the boardwalk smoking ban being a good example of how to clean up a part of town really set me off. It's one thing to follow others on a vote for something. It's another thing entirely to become a proponent of that same ordinance.

I went out to the front yard and took Polly's sign down after that. Whether I'll still vote for her, I don't know. She still might be better to have on the council that someone that wants to raise the minimum wage. I'll have to think about that and maybe just wait until I fill in my ballot to decide.

Then there's George Clark, along with Linda Atkins, proposing the minimum wage be increased in Eureka. He says he always paid his employees over the minimum wage (on average). Well, I know a number of employers that pay more than minimum wage, but they don't go around telling other employees they have to do the same. How rude!

Besides, as I mentioned elsewhere, no matter what you think about minimum wage, raising it just in Eureka would be foolhardy. We'd make ourselves a less competitive town for one thing.

If you wanted to start up a business, where would you go if you had the choice of a town that made you pay $1.00 more an hour than the one next to it? All else being equal, most businesses would chose the one with the lowest minimum wage.

And what kind of people do you want to attract to Eureka? Do you want new businesses that employ people, or people that come here because the minimum wage is higher than surrounding communities? I'd suggest that even minimum wage earners already here would want the businesses to come in, not more people competing for their jobs.

And I was waiting, waiting to see if George Clark would bring up offshore drilling or some hit on Republicans during his time to speak. Luckily, I stayed awake long enough to mention the R word, although I forget just what context he used it in.

You just can't help yourself, can you George?