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Politicians flock to
CHIP’s Candidates’ Night
By Antonio Barrios for La Prensa
Lorain: The Coalition for Hispanic/Latino Issues & Progress
managed another successful Candidates’ Night on
Oct 17, 2012, commencing at 6pm at the Gould Auditorium located
on the 2nd floor of the St. Joseph’s Community Center
on Broadway Ave in Lorain. Even though the surroundings of the
recently damaged theater were less than ideal most attendees did
not mention the unsightly conditions of the theater, but
appeared more concerned with what the candidates had to say.
Joel Arredondo,
President of CHIP, welcomed the members of the audience and the
candidates vying for their respective positions in the coming
elections of November 6, 2012. Arredondo explained the format
for the evening, advising the audience that the event was not a
town hall meeting therefore there would be no dialog with the
audience.
The questions were selected by the CHIP Political Committee,
co-chaired by Mary Santiago and David Arredondo,
in charge of the evening moderation from community leaders, law
enforcement officials, members of CHIP, and residents of the
local community. David Arredondo has stated that one of the
reasons that almost all of the candidates attend the CHIP hosted
event of questions and answers is that the evening is videotaped
by Joe Bach of Lorain City Schools and then
broadcasted a week or two before the elections on Lorain County
Community College Channel 19 and Lorain City Schools Channel 20.
Bach informed La Prensa that soon the Lorain City School
Channel 19 will be streaming on the Internet so the evening
candidates night will be seen on the World Wide Web.
This evening I was called upon as a member of the political
committee to help moderate the event along with Mary Santiago.
David Arredondo would not be moderating the evening event. One
of the most anticipated encounters was that of US Congresswoman
Marcy Kaptur with Samuel Wurzelbacher or as he is
commonly called by the media, “Joe the Plumber,” both
campaigning for the newly revised 9th District.
Earlier in the week Republican candidate Wurzelbacher was a “No
Show” at the scheduled debate at the City Club of Cleveland, but
he did attend the CHIP Candidates’ Night. A similar situation
occurred when US Congresswoman Betty Sutton was scheduled
to debate the then candidate Tom Ganely at the City Club
of Cleveland and was also a “No Show” but did attend the CHIP
candidates’ night. The CHIP organization has always maintained
that their event is one of service and information for the local
communities and not a battleground where the candidates are
attacked, civility and mutual respect is the order of the day
for the Q & A evening.
On a side note another interesting aspect of the CHIP Candidates
has nothing to do with the candidates but is all about a family
of two brothers, the Arredondo’s that are both avid political
leaders in the community. Joel Arredondo wears many hats in the
community as he is the current president of Lorain City Council,
president of CHIP, president of the Mexican Mutual Society,
and a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party while his older
brother David works at Lorain County Community College
and as head of the International Students. David is also
Co-Chair of the Lorain County Republican Party. In other words,
David and Joel work together for the benefit of the local
community but sit on opposite side of the political fence.
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Commissioner Ted Kalo, Antonio Barrios,
Phil Van Trueren
Sheriff Stamiti, Mary Santiago, AJ
Torres
CHIP staff; L-R: Pablo Senquez, Joel
Arredondo, Juanita Senquez,Elizabeth Soto, Antonio Barrios, Mary
Santiago. This photo by Miriam Rosa. not pictured
Joel
Arredondo
David Arredondo
Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur,Joyce Healy
Abrams
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