{"id":6761,"date":"2010-04-14T00:20:07","date_gmt":"2010-04-14T04:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/?p=6761"},"modified":"2010-04-14T00:20:07","modified_gmt":"2010-04-14T04:20:07","slug":"some-thoughts-about-the-dpc-chambers-candidate-forum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/14\/some-thoughts-about-the-dpc-chambers-candidate-forum\/","title":{"rendered":"Some thoughts about the DPC Chamber&#8217;s candidate forum&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tuesday morning, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dpchamber.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Danville-Pittsylvania Chamber of Commerce<\/a> sponsored a breakfast meeting at the Stratford Courtyard Conference Center. The five candidates for Danville City Council had a chance to address the business community. Let&#8217;s take a look at what happened in yet another &#8220;random thoughts&#8221; format article. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I get to the conference center around 7:15 AM, and Chamber President Laurie Moran is there with a giant smile on. Yep, happy and smiling at 7:15 AM. She&#8217;s good, people. \ud83d\ude42<\/li>\n<li>The conference room (and the whole building) is beautiful. You can see that the management and workers really care about the place and do their jobs well.<\/li>\n<li>Even though I&#8217;m thre on business, the food and coffee is very good. (Hey, gotta talk about food&#8230;)<\/li>\n<li>Chamber members (and guests) start coming in by 7:25 PM. Looks like it will be a good turnout, and it is. I&#8217;d say around 60-70 people in attendance.<\/li>\n<li>All of the candidates are present. You&#8217;ve got incumbents Adam Tomer &amp; Gary Miller and challengers Alonzo Jones, John Gilstrap &amp; Thomas Motley here.<\/li>\n<li>Danville Mayor Sherman Saunders is here along with Councilmen Larry Campbell, Fred Shanks and Buddy Rawley. Former Danville mayors John Hamlin &amp; Linwood Wright are also at the forum.<\/li>\n<li>Now let&#8217;s get to the rules&#8230;each candidate gets an opening statement, three questions to them, and then a closing statement. Linda Dalton is the head of the Chamber&#8217;s Legislative committee and will be hosting.<\/li>\n<li>Opening statements by all five candidates are relatively standard. Gary Miller stands out from the rest of the candidates by his mannerisms and talk. I have to wonder about Thomas Motley&#8217;s purple suit that he&#8217;s wearing because this is a standard shirt &amp; tie business crowd. He looked out of place among the rest of the candidates with his choice of dress. That means nothing to the issues or his qualifications, it just looked um&#8230; strange.<\/li>\n<li>First question to the candidates is about issues other than jobs &amp; education. Gary Miller bluntly says &#8220;Crime isn&#8217;t a black or white issue&#8221; and wins. Adam Tomer &amp; John Gilstrap talk about the image of Danville &amp; the &#8220;quality of life&#8221; and score points. Alonzo Jones talks about ways to cut costs. Thomas Motley sticks with his main campaign focus of high Danville Utilities bills (sigh).<\/li>\n<li>Second question is about how Danville can keep its competitive edge in economic development. All five candidates talk about workforce training in their replies. Gary Miller stands out (again) by telling the audience that Danville has lost potential businesses due to lack of workforce training. Adam Tomer also wins this question by calling out blighted areas like South &amp; West Main Streets. Alonzo Jones had a good answer by having today&#8217;s only mention of the proposed Megapark.<\/li>\n<li>Final question is about the effects of impending budget cuts. The candidates are asked about what priorities should there be and how should they be funded. Adam Tomer is the only one to declare &#8220;No tax increase.&#8221; Tomer &amp; Miller agree on properly funding public safety departments. Miller also has (another) excellent answer saying that &#8220;If the School board can trim expenses, so can Council&#8221; &amp; wondering why there are more than one firetruck\/ambulance dispatched to minor 911 calls. John Gilstrap\u00a0 is the only candidate to mention economic development as a priority. Alonzo Jones repeats education is his top priority, and Motley says that he has seen waste in the 2009 budget when he reviewed it (?).<\/li>\n<li>Closing statements from the candidates are routine with each candidate asking for votes, and we&#8217;re done.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So who went up or down? Let&#8217;s take a look&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Gary Miller &#8211; Miller had very impressive and strong answers and he showed a passion about wanting to win. Miller comes out of this forum <strong>UP<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Adam Tomer &#8211; Tomer started off slow but came alive once the questions came. He also showed a desire to get votes. Tomer comes out of this forum <strong>UP<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>John Gilstrap &#8211; Gilstrap has the look and feel of a strong candidate, but I just can&#8217;t put my finger on why he isn&#8217;t as strong as Miller &amp; Tomer. Gilstrap comes out of this forum <strong>EVEN<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Alonzo Jones &#8211; Jones has the personality and character to make a good councilman and really cares about the community. Jones comes out of this forum <strong>SLIGHTLY UP<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Thomas Motley &#8211; Motley has to realize that Danville Utilities is not the only issue in this race. I can tell he really cares about that issue but he&#8217;s not showing very little else to earn my vote. When he does branch out into other things, he&#8217;s all over the place. I really want to like him as he seems like a decent guy. Unfortunatelf for now, Motley comes out of this forum <strong>DOWN<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>21 days until Election Day. More to come&#8230;<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tuesday morning, the Danville-Pittsylvania Chamber of Commerce sponsored a breakfast meeting at the Stratford Courtyard Conference Center. The five candidates for Danville City Council had a chance to address the business community. Let&#8217;s take a look at what happened in yet another &#8220;random thoughts&#8221; format article. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<p> [&#8230;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[58,22,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-danville","category-opinioncentral","category-politicscentral","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-1L3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":17127,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2016\/02\/23\/business-after-hours-gods-pit-crew-part-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":6761,"position":0},"title":"Business After Hours: God&#8217;s Pit Crew &#8211; Part #1","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"February 23, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"SouthsideCentral loves the Danville Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce, and for good reason. They're an amazing organization that works to make the region better in things like tourism initiatives, workforce development, educational outreach and business support. It's well worth it to join the chamber. The chamber's February Business After Hours\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;BusinessCentral&quot;","block_context":{"text":"BusinessCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/businesscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/0lrRuRs.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/0lrRuRs.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/0lrRuRs.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/0lrRuRs.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":14215,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/10\/14\/southside-show-biz-part-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":6761,"position":1},"title":"Southside Show-Biz &#8211; Part #1","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"October 14, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Every year, the Danville Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce holds their Southside Show-Biz trade show. The public gets a chance to see exhibits from lots of regional businesses and learn about what they sell and do. We're going to start a PhotoCentral set of articles from this year's event. Let's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;BusinessCentral&quot;","block_context":{"text":"BusinessCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/businesscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/CsS5inh.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/CsS5inh.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/CsS5inh.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/CsS5inh.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5099,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/08\/24\/images-danville-and-pittsylvania-countys-newest-magazine\/","url_meta":{"origin":6761,"position":2},"title":"&#8220;Images&#8221; &#8211; Danville and Pittsylvania County&#8217;s newest magazine!","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"August 24, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The Danville-Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce is introducing a new magazine about the area. \"Images\" is a new magazine that will highlight the Danville & Pittsylvania County area's quality of place, vitality and individuality. It will be distributed to prospective new businesses, employees and residents. The magazine is advertiser-supported by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;BusinessCentral&quot;","block_context":{"text":"BusinessCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/businesscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5621,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/10\/16\/southside-show-biz-expo-recap-thoughts\/","url_meta":{"origin":6761,"position":3},"title":"Southside Show-Biz Expo &#8211; Recap &#038; Thoughts","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"October 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"If you didn't attend Thursday's Southside Show-Biz Expo sponsored by the Danville-Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce, you missed one of Danville's showcase events. Let's do a recap and some thoughts about the trade show. The expo was held at the Institute for Advanced Learning & Research, and we can't stop\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;BusinessCentral&quot;","block_context":{"text":"BusinessCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/businesscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11778,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/01\/16\/business-after-hours-1152015\/","url_meta":{"origin":6761,"position":4},"title":"PhotoCentral: Business After Hours (1\/15\/2015)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"January 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The Danville Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce held their monthly Business After Hours at the Danville Family YMCA on Thursday night and it was a great time. The YMCA is an amazing place and we'll take you on a PhotoCentral of that on Friday... but let's take a look at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;BusinessCentral&quot;","block_context":{"text":"BusinessCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/businesscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/Q3pFbW9.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/Q3pFbW9.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/Q3pFbW9.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/Q3pFbW9.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8516,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/04\/17\/some-thoughts-about-todays-danville-job-fair\/","url_meta":{"origin":6761,"position":5},"title":"Some thoughts about today&#8217;s Danville Job Fair&#8230;","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 17, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The Danville Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce hosted a job fair at the Institute today (with a lot of help from numerous partners). SouthsideCentral was there covering it (and hey, looking for a new job too!) and I've got a Big Board of Random Thoughts about it. Let's bring on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;BusinessCentral&quot;","block_context":{"text":"BusinessCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/businesscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}