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Video: Longmont City Council At-Large Debate

The Longmont At-large City Council Debate.
At Large Debate
From the audio booth at Longmont Museum

This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Candidates Joan Peck, Jeff Moore, Ron Gallegos, and Matt Garrett debate about Longmont issues. The questions and topics were gathered from the community.

The debate will run from 3-5 p.m.

Moderator Shakeel Dalal devised a method for a 4-way debate. The rules are as follow:

The format for the At-Large debate will be structured differently to ensure that all candidates have the opportunity to share their views. Candidates were informed of the new rules prior to the publication of this article.

– Each candidate will be permitted a 2-minute opening and closing statement, in a randomly determined order.
– There will be 12 questions across the topic areas defined for the debates as previously described. The moderator may use his discretion to ask questions outside of the defined topics, as determined by current events.
– Each candidate will have 14 opportunities to speak over the course of the debate, each opportunity lasting 2 minutes.
– For each question, a randomly assigned candidate will be the first to respond to the question. This will not count towards the candidates’ 14 speaking opportunities. Assignments will be made before the debate begins. Each candidate will receive an equal number of assignments to be the first to respond to a question.
– After the assigned candidate has made their 2-minute response, other candidates may use one of their 14 opportunities to speak. Opportunities are used by signaling the moderator that the candidate wishes to speak.
– No candidate may use more than 2 of their opportunities to speak on a single question.
– The candidate that is the first to respond to a question may also use up to 2 of their opportunities to speak on that question.
– For topics of particular interest, the moderator may at his discretion allow further discussion with or without counting them against each candidates’ opportunities to speak. In this event, the moderator will provide all candidates with the opportunity to speak further.
– The moderator may, at his discretion, award all candidates an identical number of additional speaking opportunities that can be used in the remainder of the debate.
– Candidates are reminded that rude or uncivil language towards each other will not be tolerated.
– Time limits for each speaking opportunity will be strictly enforced.