Snafus mar attempt to hold RBHS debate

Normally, arranging a candidate forum in a local election is a pretty simple affair. Some civic group picks a location and invites the candidates. The candidates typically agree to come. At the forum they give brief statements and usually answer some questions from an audience.

That’s the way planning has gone for a forum for candidates for the Brookfield-LaGrange Park Elementary District 95 school board and Riverside-Brookfield Township High School District 208 school board that will be held at S.E. Gross Middle School in Brookfield on Monday, April 9.

The forum, sponsored by the Brook Park Elementary School Parents Council and the S.E. Gross Middle School Parent Teacher Organization will start with the District 95 candidates appearing from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. Then the District 208 candidates will appear from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m.

However another attempt to hold a televised forum just for the District 208 candidates has been beset by problems, confusion, hurt feelings and a flurry of e-mails flying through cyberspace for the past few weeks.

“Setting up the Harold Washington, Tom Hynes, Ed Vrdolyak, Don Haider 1987 [Chicago] mayoral debate was easier and a good deal more fun,” said District 208 candidate Christopher Robling who served as Republican Haider’s campaign manager 20 years ago.

As the Landmark went to press on Tuesday afternoon the format for this forum, now scheduled for April 11, remained unclear. Tim Scanlon, RB’s assistant principal in charge of curriculum and instruction, has been given the unenviable task of putting the event together.

He said Monday that he was planning to call a representative of the League of Women Voters on Tuesday evening (after the Landmark’s deadline) to make the final arrangements. Scanlon said that he was sure the forum would take place on Wednesday evening April 11, probably beginning at 7 p.m.

But the forum may not be before a live audience. It will be taped by RBTV, the school television station, and be broadcast numerous times before the April 17 election on RBTV, but will not be broadcast live, Scanlon said. It may take up to 48 hours after the forum for the first broadcast of the forum to air, Scanlon said. Scanlon added that voters will be able to view the forum as streaming video on the RB High School website some time after the event.

Marty Kenahan, the president of the Patrons Council, the parent group that supports RB, got things started by suggesting to RB Superintendent/Principal Jack Baldermann and RBTV Director Gary Prokes that the school broadcast a school board candidate forum as it apparently had 12 years ago.

Kenahan started organizing the forum though school officials say they never gave her a direct approval to do so. On March 14, in an e-mail obtained by the Landmark, Kenahan invited all eight District 208 candidates to a forum that she wrote would be held at the RBTV studio on April 4. According to the e-mail, there would be an impartial moderator, a small audience and an opportunity for call-in questions.

Six of the eight candidates apparently agreed to come, with only school board President Larry Herbst and another incumbent, Martin Crowley not responding.

However, Kenahan had circulated the candidate petitions of Robling, James Marciniak and David Hilpp, who are running as team and challenging the three incumbent board members. There were concerns among some of the candidates that the format proposed by Kenahan would favor Robling, who once worked as radio host and has frequently been a political commentator on local television and radio. Robling is known as a skillful wordsmith, and in his younger days served as a Republican political operative.

“There were people who suggested that this could be a conflict of interest, and people thought that the format favored certain candidates,” said Scanlon.

Scanlon talked to Kenahan about those concerns.

Two days after Kenahan invited candidates to the forum, she sent an e-mail to Prokes saying that she received a call from Scanlon asking her to step down from any organizational responsibility for the forum because she circulated the petitions for Robling, Marciniak and Hilpp.

Kenahan met with Scanlon, and she withdrew from the planning process for the forum, citing health reasons. Kenahan has not returned numerous telephone calls from the Landmark seeking for comment.

Robling said he has met Kenahan once, on a train a few years ago.

Scanlon decided to ask the League of Women Voters for help in organizing a candidate forum. Because RB was on spring break last week, Scanlon said that it was impossible to hold the event on April 4, because RBTV needed more time to prepare to tape the event and he needed time to get League input.

Robling and his allies were unhappy with the delay in the date of the forum. Because the forum will not be held until the Wednesday before the April 17 election, the Landmark will not have an opportunity to report on the forum in print prior to the election.

The RBTV studio is so small that the forum may have to be held without a live audience, Scanlon said. Scanlon said the forum could not be broadcast live, because the sound truck that RBTV shares with Lyons Township High School and six other communities is not available to RB in the entire month of April.

Alice Lusthoff replaced Kenahan as the Patrons Council representative to the proceedings. After a meeting of the Patrons Council executive board on Monday, March 26 Lusthoff sent an e-mail to Scanlon stating, according to a copy of the e-mail obtained by the Landmark, that the Patrons Council would host the forum “as long as community members are invited to view and hear the candidates live in the auditorium or the Little Theatre.”

In an e-mail reply to a question asking if the Patrons’ Council was still sponsoring the forum, Lustoff replied, “I do not believe there is a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer at this time, as the forum is still a work in progress.”

One thing everyone can agree on is that the experience has been miserable for everyone involved with it. Scanlon says he just wants to done with it.

“This was not our idea,” said Scanlon. “This was brought to us from the outside. It’s a service to the community and I just wish people would give us the benefit of the doubt. The school has reached out to the stakeholders to get input. People are confusing this election with a national campaign with dirty tricks and distortion.”