Romanelli West Forum

Yesterday was the Romanelli West Neighborhood forum in the auditorium of Southwest High School. The mayoral candidates were first and went way over time which we were all anticipating anyway. By the time we humble council candidates took the stage over half the crowd and most of the media people had left out of boredom or exhaustion. I didn't feel like it was one of my best performances. I was a little off my game but only my wife seemed to notice. The in-district candidates fielded questions on conflicts of interests, TIF, and education. That's all there was time for because we all had to be out of the building by 6PM. The at-large candidates got the smoking ban and economic development as it relates to small business. It was interesting for me to see how some candidates have gotten better at public speaking, and others have grown worse. The audience was given scorecards to rate each candidate on a scale of 1 to 5 on different attributes. I stupidly did not get one to fill out so I didn't get a chance to give myself all 5's! Some people seemed confused by the cards so I'm not sure how valid the data will be when it comes out. I will, of course change my opinion if I have the highest scores once they are posted! Update: The first review is in and well... Kinda good, kinda bad. A commenter over at KC Buzz Blog had this to say about my performance yesterday: Mark Forsythe - Very bright. Very knowledgeable. Tends to ramble and couldn't get everything he wanted to say out in the time limit. Obviously loves to be in front of a crowd. Guilty as charged. I do love to be in front of a crowd. Youngest child syndrome. "Tends to ramble?" Ouch! And that's saying something considering we were only given a couple of minutes to respond to a question. Oh well. It could have been worse I guess. I was rambling.