The Lighthouse Keeper
BY DANIEL W. DRAKE
Being a panelist on the Civic League's "Meet The Candidates" forum is interesting duty. One would think that it would be great to come up with questions, pose them to the candidates and to assimilate the responses up close and personal. The panelist's role is rewarding, but it isn't quite as cushy as it might appear.

First, the questions have to be created. You want the questions to sound thoughtful and serious, yet you realize that they must be as brief as possible, not sound like you are preaching or have an ax to grind and, certainly, not relate to things in which you have a direct, rather than merely intellectual, interest.

Some topics are obvious. When town employees are running for selectman, they will always be asked about the conflict of interest in sitting on a board which passes on their compensation and benefit. Do you phrase your question in the same old way or do you try to put a different spin on it? Of late, sewers and solid waste are always easy topics. On these tried and true subjects, how can you make the questions sound new and fresh? Or should you even bother, because the whole point of the program is to be looking to the candidates, not to yourself, for new and fresh ideas?

Taxes and municipal budgets are always topics of discussion. Budget cutting is a popular suggestion. Only when they face the grim reality of parsing the budget do they realize that just about ten percent of the entire town budget is discretionary and services are already perilously close to the bone. Another ten percent of the budget is debt service and the remaining 80 percent is personnel cost. If the candidates realized that expense savings of any meaningful amount would not result from forgoing painting the lines on the roads or serving two meals a day instead of three at Our Island Home but, rather, meant eliminating jobs, they would sew their lips together.

You start your list of questions with the standard subjects and go on from there. You finally have what seems like enough questions to get you through the allotted time. Then you remember there are other panelists. They too are coming up with questions. They are covering the same same-old topics you are. Their questions will mirror yours. Despite your long list, you do not have enough. So you continue grinding away.

You seek help from colleagues and relatives. Some of those you ask for assistance blow you off. Others claim you are infringing on their territory and there is no way they are going to help. Others put up a smoke screen by submitting questions like, "Who is a better mother, Angelina Jolie or Madonna?" But a couple of stalwarts do come through and enable you to round out your list of questions with topics which are less familiar to you.

You are pretty pleased with the final list. You dress up and show up.

The first question is posed by another panelist and your interest soon turns to concern. That inquiry covered the subjects of two of your questions. You start looking through your list. You riffle through your pages. Where are those questions, anyway? How do you rearrange things? By the time the candidates have finished answering, you have pretty well regained your composure, but you barely remember the question and don't have the foggiest idea how the candidates responded.

That circumstance continues pretty much for the entire program. As a panelist you get wrapped up in the process, as much as in the substance. You get impatient. It sure takes a long time to get to be your turn again. That question wasn't nearly as good as mine. How dare some member of the audience come up spontaneously with a question that it took you 15 minutes to craft?

From your question or someone else's, you hear an answer you don't like or that is incomplete. Do you follow up, or would that just be a waste of time when there are other pressing matters to be discussed?

Even as you are all wrapped up in your panelist duties, some of the candidate's comments do penetrate. You wish you had started counting the number of times one or another of the candidates began his or her response with the phrase "I agree with...." If everyone agrees with everyone, why are we here? Maybe we should have a candidate's talent show instead of a Q and A. Let's just vote on plumbing ability or the richness of the chocolate cake or the cuteness of the kids.

An occasional pearl is dropped. One concept broached at last week's "Meet the Candidates" was using town employees in different roles depending on the need in various departments. One department's peak work load might coincide with a lull in another department and personnel could be shifted between them as needed and available. No matter that the proponent of the idea had previously said the idea would never work. It is on the table and needs to be pursued.

The Wall Street Journal columnist, Peggy Noonan, had a great piece in last Friday's paper. (www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id =110009221) Written in the aftermath of last week's elections, the column's thrust was that people in politics are never candid until after they are defeated, and how refreshing it would be if they were to bring the same candor to dealing with some of the major issues of the day.

Noonan's case in point is dealing with the continuing terrorist threat to New York and Washington, but wouldn't it be refreshing - and encouraging - if in considering fiscal issues or waste water treatment or erosion, the local candidates said, "I don't know, but I am going to find out and get whatever help I need. I am going to do the best that I can do in solving the problem."

Last week's forum ultimately served its purpose. Despite my focus on the questions rather than the answers, I was able to glean enough to decide on the candidate for whom I will vote. I don't know whether the person I am voting for will be a good selectman, but those answers (while less candid than more, I suspect) resonated with me.

When it is all over, you agonize about the questions that weren't. On reflection, the best question that got away last Friday was, "Would you feel differently about beach nourishment if the private proposal involved restoring the vehicle track to Smith's Point instead of saving non-voting taxpayers' houses?" It is too much to hope that question would evoke candor from the candidates, but it would be fun to watch them squirm!

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The "Lighthouse Keeper" reflects the views of the author and does not necessarily represent the editorial position of The Nantucket Independent. Please send any comments to drake@nantucketindependent. com.