What To Do With An Odd Hall?

The old saying is that all politics is local. That’s definitely true in Stonington, where residents recently had an in-person town meeting at the local baseball field, so as to allow appropriate social distancing. At the meeting, the attendees discussed and voted on a number of issues. One of them was what whether to proceed with the town purchasing the building shown above.

It’s the former meeting hall for the local chapter of the International Order of Odd Fellows, located on the western edge of Stonington’s small downtown area. There aren’t many Odd Fellows left in Stonington, so the organization offered to sell the building to the town. Town officials were supportive of the idea and put it on the agenda for the town meeting, where residents voted to approve the purchase.

Why would residents vote to approve the acquisition of an old fraternal organization building? One of the arguments was to keep it out of the hands of a buyer who would turn it into a personal residence, thereby further hemming in the commercial area of town. And while the building may need a lot of work—a point made by opponents of the purchase—the property sits on precious waterfront and includes an old dock, both of which could give rise to commercial uses.

The cost of the building to taxpayers is initially estimated to be $525,000, which is a lot of money for a small town. Town officials are exploring the possibility of getting federal and state aid to help pay for the purchase and the necessary refurbishing work, and also are working on potential uses for the building.

It’s a tough issue. The Odd Fellows’ Hall could turn out to be a white elephant that puts a crimp in the city budget, but towns like Stonington need to preserve their commercial areas, too. It’s a risk, of course, but it’s reasonable to believe that some business somewhere will see the potential of a building that commands a great view of the harbor and will turn a derelict venue into a functioning contributor to life in downtown Stonington. The voters at the town meeting see an opportunity. Now we’ll keep an eye on that building to see if the opportunity is realized.

Quick Thoughts On The Second Debate

The second debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney is now in the books.  Was there a winner and loser?

I think the loser is the town meeting format.  It’s just not well suited to a meaningful debate.  The candidates both ran roughshod over the rules, often failed to answer the questions, and frequently argued with each other and interrupted each other.  The result was a very messy discussion.  It was not particularly attractive to watch, and in my view didn’t reflect well on either candidate.  I’d be interested in knowing whether the folks in the room felt as uncomfortable watching the interruptions and posturing as Kish and I did watching from our family room.

The questions at least got us into some new issues that haven’t been addressed yet — domestic gas prices, trade, immigration, gun control, and Libya, with the Libya discussion probably being the one that is the most likely to be carefully deconstructed and analyzed.  These are issues that need to be discussed, and it is worthwhile that they have been introduced to this campaign.

Both candidates obviously decided to be more assertive.  The President certainly was more aggressive than he was in the first debate, and in that sense I think he did what he needed to do in the debate.  Mitt Romney responded in kind.  Because the President gave a much stronger performance than in the first debate, he at least won’t be criticized by his own supporters — which will be a victory of sorts for him.  We’ll see what the fallout is as people digest the discussion and the argument, and the unattractive, off-putting nature of this debate.

The Second Time Around

Tonight President Obama and Mitt Romney square off in their second debate.  Debates always are a political high-wire act — and tonight that is particularly true for President Obama, who will be looking to recover from a first debate that has given Mitt Romney a surge in the polls and a sense of significant momentum.

This debate will have a “town meeting” format.  Undecided voters chosen by Gallup will ask questions of the candidates.  The topics may include foreign and domestic issues.  Each candidate gets two minutes to answer, and then moderator Candy Crowley of CNN has another minute to “facilitate a discussion.”   If everyone stick to the time limits (ha!), answers will consume about five minutes, which means more than 15 topics could be addressed during the 90-minute debate.  That presents a much more daunting candidate preparation challenge than did the first debate, where the topics that would be the subject of questions were disclosed well before the debate began.

I’m not a big fan of the town meeting format.  Too often, the citizen participants ask narrow questions about topics that might be important to them but aren’t really relevant to the general public.  Due to the short time limits the debates flit from topic to topic, each candidate reeling off their two-minute talking points about the issue without any real give and take between the candidates.  How is the moderator supposed to “facilitate a discussion” in one minute?  When was the last time you had a one-minute “discussion” about anything?

Still, the format does have its intrigue.  Any time you have average folks in a room with presidential candidates there’s the chance that something unexpected might happen and a screwball question might lead to a memorable moment.  Add in questions about whether Crowley will depart from the agreed-upon moderator’s role and conspiratorial theories about whether any of the “undecided voters” are really partisan plants who will ask a question scripted by one of the campaigns and you have an event that is worth checking out.

My only prediction is that this debate will have an even larger TV audience than the first one.  I think the continuing talk about the President’s performance during the first debate will cause people who skipped that contest to tune in just to see how the President does and whether Mitt Romney can turn in another strong performance.  I think we’ve finally reached the point where all likely voters are fully engaged in the process.  That means most people — outside of New York Yankee and Detroit Tiger fans — will probably watch to see how their candidate does.