Mayoral Candidates Shannon Glover, Cliff Page, John Rowe, Jim Sturdevant, Kenneth Wright
Portsmouth Taxpayer Alliance Cochair and Forum Moderator Pat Simons
A full house at the 2016 Mayoral Forum hosted by Portsmouth Taxpayer Alliance
The Portsmouth Taxpayer Alliance hosted a Mayoral Candidate Forum at their August monthly meeting. In attendance were Candidates Shannon Glover, Cliff Page, John Rowe, Jim Sturdevant, and Kenneth Wright, the incumbent mayor. Candidate Barry Randall was unable to attend as he was officiating at a wedding. After his opening statement and response to a question from the audience, Mayor Wright left to attend another event.
The video recording of the forum is available on the PortsmouthCityWatch.org YouTube Channel.
At this meeting Mayor Wright showed his usual contempt for anyone or anything he perceives as a personal threat to his agenda or self. But, this time he did it in spades by insulting and misrepresenting the host. He angrily presumed that they were out to get him and then huffing off to another meeting after attacking not only those that invited him and the rest of the candidates, who all came to present their positions in a democratic way. But he also offended the attendees who came to enlighten themselves in the democratic process.
The Mayor’s attacks were paranoid, uncalled for, served only to embarrass himself, but also demeaned our City. This individual who holds our most honored position, took the low road of attacking the hand that feeds him as the first thing out of his maw. What hubris and disrespect. Is their any wonder why five other candidates are gathered together to depose him. When the mayor leaves the barn in the morning, he should at least put on the mantle of civility an try to act like a man who walks on two legs, and carry himself into the public gaze with the decorum of the office bestowed upon him, rather than embarrass his fellow citizens with his childish antics and insult those who pay his salary!
Thank you for providing video coverage. I was not aware of this forum and so, did not attend.
Since I am pretty much always at the farmers market on Saturdays, I very much appreciate the recording of this forum, Mark. I heard quite a few things of interest I hadn’t heard at any other forum and wish we could take a bit of each candidate’s ideas/proposals/characters to form a whole platform/personality for one unstoppable candidate! That being impossible, it does help to have this kind of information to sift through to consider serious possibilities (or probabilities) based on what each candidate could bring to a new team in city hall. So thanks!