Mayoral Debate in Monrovia Asks More Questions than It Answers

Photos by Terry Miller

It was standing room only at City Hall Tuesday evening for the Monrovia Mayoral forum hosted by the League of Women Voters.
With paraphrased questions read to candidates for Mayor Mary Ann Lutz, Tom Adams and Leonard Holen, some voters were left wondering why their complete questions weren’t answered.
Specifically, one resident said his question about who actually applied for the grant(s) that were lost was not answered at all.
Other critics claim that they submitted specific questions and the moderator, Robbie Davis, generalized and categorized the questions while losing much of the specifics of a particular query.
However, Dorothy Kean from the League of Women Votes in Pasadena said this is standard practice at forums they have been invited to moderate. With the number of questions exceeding 80-90 and a limited timeframe, the moderator “receives questions for the sorters who categorize them by subject and then Robbie Davis had to essentially combine the questions …” Ms. Kean told Monrovia Weekly in a telephone interview Wednesday morning.

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Mrs. Kean said that there is a MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) that each forum agrees to. She said the LWV was very pleased with the turnout and was happy and that she “learned a lot.” Mrs. Kean also felt, as others in the audience did, that some questions were definitely skirted.
During the forum, it was brilliantly clear that the rancor between Mayor Lutz and Tom Adams will not go away any time soon. It was also obvious that the audience was not impressed with candidate Holen, specifically when he said he was not in favor of Historic homes per se. In fact, there was a noticeable gasp in the collective audience when he said he didn’t see a problem with small homes being razed in favor of new bigger homes. “He’s done …” said one audience member in the front row after that comment.
Lutz and Adams differ on most issues; however, there was some agreement between the two on the attention needed to address the “homeless problem” at Monrovia’s Library Park. Both candidates offered compassionate answers to a complex issue.
The election is next month.

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