BY ALEX CANTATORE
Staff Reporter
The Berg Fellowship Hall at Turlock’s Covenant Village Retirement Community hosted the second of four currently scheduled City Council Candidate debates yesterday evening, drawing a sizable crowd of retirees looking for honest answers to honest questions. Those in the audience as well as some back in their apartments, viewing on closed-circuit television, saw past Vice Mayor Maurice Palmberg moderate a lively debate that kept the candidates on their toes.
“I have been telling everyone that this is my favorite forum,” said David “DJ” Fransen as he introduced himself to the crowd. “The reason I like it is because it’s so straightforward.”
The event was staged as a sort of town hall forum where candidates made opening statements before the floor was opened to questions from the audience. Palmberg had a few questions of his own for the candidates before the evening was done, and was never shy to take a more active approach to moderating, interjecting his own opinion on what the candidates had to say.
“Thank you very much (Fransen), you give new meaning to the phrase filibustering,” Palmberg deadpanned when he considered Fransen to have taken too long for an opening statement.
Though the responses of the candidates were largely in keeping with the messages presented at the past Chamber of Commerce debate, all seemed to be more at ease with their message. Except, of course, when Palmberg jumped out to challenge a candidate’s statements.
It was clear from the start that the moderator would not be giving anyone an easy ride as he challenged incumbent Vice Mayor Kurt Vander Weide on his pet subject of Benefit Assessment Districts, which asks neighbors to band together to pay for their own infrastructure, and homelessness.
“I think that I have been the person at the forefront of trying to bring a real world solution (to homelessness),” Vander Weide said. “Divest the city from it as far as capital expenditure is concerned, help with planning, (and hand it off to the Turlock Gospel Mission).”
Vander Weide left shortly after the beginning of the debate as his presence was required at the Turlock City Council meeting, but the debate continued on with a level of frankness not seen at the Chamber debate. Retirees stood to ask questions about growth, roads, and taxes, proving themselves well versed in the Turlock political scene when one asked about how Amy Bublak and Kurt Vander Weide’s recent endorsement from the Turlock Firefighters Union Local 2434 might affect their decision making.
“My integrity still holds. These are people that support me as a person. They may (want someone in their pocket), but they endorsed me,” Bublak, a City of Modesto Police Officer, said with a grin.
Evangelist Jim Sarnowsky took the worst of the punishment throughout the course of the evening for his sometimes-hazy plans and sprawling, often off-topic answers. When a retiree tried to get Sarnowsky to pin down exactly what wasteful spending he would cut out of the existing budget, his only response was, “I’d rather keep that to myself,” drawing snickers from the audience.
As Palmberg retook the helm to ask a final few questions to the council candidates, he opened with a candid assessment of the council as it stands today and asked candidates how they would slot into the mix.
“This council is very fractionalized,” Palmberg said. “There’s dissension, there’s fighting, there’s quarreling, there’s those who posture themselves as swing voters, there’s a block that votes as a block, joined at the hip. Are you independent-minded just for this evening, or are you going to be independent-minded when you are on the council?”
“I’m an independent voice and I don’t think what’s happened in the past needs to continue,” said Mary Jackson. “We can’t decide if we need to have a BMX park, we can’t decide what needs to be done with the homeless situation (and) I think the Turlock I know can do a lot better than this. I really hope when you’re going to vote you look at what’s been happening.”
“As a police officer, every day I have to tell people things they don’t want to hear,” Bublak said. “I don’t always make people happy and yet I seem to have a consensus building effect.”
“No one’s been able to program me yet,” said Fransen. “I’m an independent thinker but not an independent voice. I don’t have a personal agenda on one single thing in Turlock.”
Palmberg asked a few more questions of the assembled candidates about the topics of homelessness and budgeting, but before too long the evening had come to an end and all that was left were closing statements-limited to a minute, much to Fransen’s chagrin considering his earlier “filibustering.”
Jackson reused her closing statement from the last debate, a soliloquy on where she sees Turlock in the future, while Bublak opened up a little more than had been seen before about the enthusiasm she has for her adopted home.
“Although I was not born here, since I came here I have not left,” Bublak said. “(Even when I worked as a detective in Richmond) I commuted to Richmond every day. Everyone there called me Sherlock from Turlock.”
Fransen was not to be outdone, though, as he drew his statement to a close, letting the passion he has for the community through to the surface.
“I don’t think anyone’s got anything on me in terms of community advocacy here in Turlock,” Fransen said. “I have independent ideas that represent the community. I’m sorry if my voice is getting a little quivery, but I get passionate about Turlock.”
To contact Alex Cantatore, e-mail acantatore@turlockjournal.com or call 634-9141 ext. 2005.
Originally published in the Turlock Journal 9/24/2008.
Retrieved from the Turlock Journal Web site.