12/03/2025
Y'all remember when the South Fulton State House Delegation interviewed the CoSF Mayoral candidates? I found those interviews extremely helpful in determining who I wanted to be our inaugural mayor.
Now, that we have gone through this round of elections, (Congratulations to our newly elected/re-elected leaders of South Fulton...let's move forward with focus and precision) I want to ask those who are active around the space of candidate forums in our city to form a coalition to do this sort of work for future city-wide elections. You have already shown your passion for our community and I know that you hold the work you have done as something extremely important and necessary. Let's do something to make it even more impactful.
Essentially, this provides us with REAL information about the candidates, their motivation, their preparation for the office they seek and their qualification for the job. I've seen several candidate forums and found them to be a bit lacking for a couple of reasons.
(1) when given only 3 minutes, voters get little more than catchy sound bites
(2) when in a candidate forum, SUBSEQUENT respondents to the same question can craft a better response based on what they've heard moments before from the previous answers. These answers MAY not be genuine or well considered answers, but simply stronger responses benefited by what the first one or two respondents stated.
(3) We don't have time for the many folks to share their thoughts, visions, concerns. There were several candidate forums this year and NOT ALL candidates were invited based on whatever qualifications where used to determine who could be on the stage.
Thanks so much to, at that time, Rep. Roger Bruce for leading this effort to bring a much-needed service to the citizens. This is just one of the examples of why we need him as Senator in the upcoming special election. He understands what we need as voters and he is ready to bring this same level of service to us.
It is my hope that he is elected for the remainder of this Senate term and that we, as a community, will again take this same approach to the candidates for the upcoming full-term election of our Senator and other city impacting elections.
Here's a link to one of the most demonstrative reasons for an interview approach over only candidate forums. These several interviews are example of the VALUE of the interviews. In one word...illuminating.
https://youtu.be/DE1y3Ix8Jf4?si=EgFcqEW2P63VGw0x
https://youtu.be/d-CqA8GVJHI?si=E_yAedDIC4EoboiU
https://youtu.be/8FJGXVH8BAE?si=gjCvQMQIo_RmTIk3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq1vx_jIQDY&t=82s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouX_lhxLEq8
The South Fulton State House Delegation interviews City of South Fulton Mayoral Candidate Rafer Johnson.
