Gary Cornell
This is in response to the mean-spirited letter by Paula Devine
("Forum's format is partly to blame for mayoral flap") that appeared
in the News-Press on March 21.
Glendale Homeowners Coordinating Council got a fine reputation
over the years by hard, dedicated work by many hard-working leaders
including that of your mayor, Bob Yousefian, who was a past president
of this organization. We do not have a mission statement to derail or
sabotage, or a personal agenda against any candidate. There is a lot
of hard work in putting on a forum, especially when you have 19
candidates. The vice president, Albert Hofmann, and myself came
aboard on Feb. 7. We did not even enjoy a honeymoon. Hofmann in
particular worked his tail off to see that we did offer a
comprehensive, fair and balanced forum. Judging from the
questionnaire survey that we got back, which I asked for at the
beginning and at the end of the forum, the audience of 200 gave us a
fair to good rating on the handling of the forum. I asked for this
report card in order to know where we can improve next time around.
There was some negative input about our handling, as well as that of
our moderator. Did you fill out a questionnaire, Ms. Devine?
I would like at this time to thank the many members of the
audience for taking time out of their hectic agenda to fill out the
survey and give it back to us. Those constructive comments will be
incorporated in the next forum that the Glendale Homeowners
Coordinating Council will host. We do care, which is why we asked for
your constructive input. One item that stood out was that many of you
thanked us for starting on time, and we even ended five minutes
early. My wife and I have attended close to five candidate forums,
which haven't started on time and often carry on up to three hours
before concluding. Time permitted us to recognize other candidates
other than City Council candidates. Each of those candidates were
given a minute to identify themselves and the office they were
running for.
I have taken the following measures that will be implemented the
next time around.
* Appoint in November, at the same time we do our own nominating
committee, a committee to plan, set up and coordinate a candidate
forum for City Council, Glendale Unified School District and college
trustees.
* File the survey questionnaires to be available for review by
this committee.
* Have a report ready and back to the membership at our January
meeting for any action deemed necessary.
