On Tuesday, voters in Lehigh County will go to the polls to elect a county executive and 5 county commissioners. In advance of that, I asked the candidates to respond to a set of 6 questions. Both county executive candidates did as did 7 of the 10 candidates (actually 7 of 8 in the races other than District 3). Candidate Hillary Kwiatek sat for an interview rather than a written response, so what follows are virtual debates among the candidates, as well as a recap of the Oct. 2 debate between Scott Ott and Don Cunningham.
Written responses appear as they were sent except I have made all fonts the same and run Word for Windows’ spell check.
Questions asked:
1) What qualifies you to be county commissioner (executive)?
2) Why are you running?
3) What are the three biggest issues facing the county?
4) Will you agree that the $20 million Rainy Day fund cannot be used for purposes of balancing the 2011 budget?
5) With most likely scenarios suggesting a budget imbalance between current expenses and current receipts in 2011 and with the limited amount of funds left after the Taxpayer Relief Fund is exhausted in 2010, ASSUMING there is a budget gap of $8 to $20 million in 2011, would you plug that gap by cutting spending, raising taxes or a combination?
6) To the extent you would cut spending in number 5, please give specifics as to what you would cut.
OLDER ARTICLES:
Does museum grant mean money does grow on trees?
Comments