Big Sky Blog

Sort of a shameless plug here for a new semi-blog: the Great Falls Election 2005 blog. Two factors in play here:

1. One of the candidates for Mayor, Dona Stebbins, has been reading and commenting on several Great Falls blogs for a while, and some of us figured it might be interesting to give the Mayoral and City Commission candidates the opportunity to share their views and proposals online.

2. One of the local radio stations, KQDI 1450 AM, is sponsoring a “Citizens’ Forum.” What, exactly, is that?

“…we need your questions. Send us the questions you want answered — the questions that could very well decide your vote. We know you’re informed and concerned, so let us know what to ask the folks who want to lead you. We’ll take questions from our listeners until Sunday, Oct 23. Then we’ll review submissions and choose three questions to submit to all candidates. The questions will be posted right here on Oct 25. The candidate responses will be posted by November 2nd.”

Well, that doesn’t quite sit right. Three questions? The staff at KQDI is going to decide what three questions the candidates should answer, and then post the responses in due time? Nope…there’s gotta be a better way. This IS the year 2005, isn’t it?

So the Great Falls Election 2005 blog was born. Candidate Stebbins has already registered at the site. I sent most of the other candidates an e-mail inviting them to participate…now it’s up to them (remaining two candidates will be invited when I get their e-mail or phone #). And considering that the primary runoff election earlier this month resulted in a difference of only 12 votes between the top two Mayoral candidates, well…every little bit of public awareness could matter. This project could be a flop — the candidates may very well decide to ignore this opportunity — but it’s worth a shot.