Kirby H for most disappointing trustee, T-G for best pretend newspaper

Here is part of what I sent to the T-G yesterday, well before deadline (I also sent them an earlier email with an exact tally of which trustees were in attendance, plus any spouses, and a head count of who was in the audience and who picked up candidate packets): In any event, if Kirby doesn't respond and you need the nuts and bolts of what happened, Town Clerk Williamson spoke first for the first thirty minutes with a Power Point presentation outlining the qualifications needed to become a candidate (18 years old, residence in town for at least one year), the petition candidates need to circulate to get on the ballot (10 signatures of voters who live in town), how your name can appear on the ballot, the important deadlines if you want to be a write-in candidate or want to withdraw, the lot drawing for order on the ballot, the date the ballots go out, the date of the LWV forum, the day of the actual election, etc., and then spent more time talking about campaign laws and funding and what you need to report for donations and expenditures and deadlines for reporting these, fielding questions from the audience the whole time (I was the audience surrogate, and asked about 5 different questions related to cash amount someone can donate that doesn't need to be reported, whether you need to be present during the lot drawing, the line on the petition where you can name your replacement if you leave town or go to jail or die, and why no one fills it out so we always have to go through some arbitrary process of filling a position that becomes vacant, but Mark Igel also asked a question about what other things might appear on the ballot besides the mayor and trustee candidates, and Jackie said there is the potential for two ballot initiatives, one related to PEP and neighbors having more of a say in zoning, and one related to a proposed sound ordinance). Then the last 30 minutes was the mayor talking in generalities about what the trustee position and the mayor position entails as far as responsibilities and time commitments and benefits (salary and insurance) and liaison positions. Again, I asked generic questions and avoided the questions that make the mayor not my best friend, for example, why she couldn't bring herself to have monthly mayor's chats, as the two previous mayors did, and thought that her office hours (barely in the building Tues-Thurs) and a monthly pep talk column to the local papers would suffice. But whatever, she's decided to not be mayor when she could have run again and won in a landslide, so I shouldn't be complaining about her taking long vacations and always seeming to have one planned during an emergency, which then had to be cancelled. I believe the mayor and the trustees should NEVER miss a meeting because of vacations, should only miss them in extreme emergencies (death in the family, illness requiring hospitalization) and should be available 24/7, or why run?

Here is how Kirby H. responded well after deadline: [Ed. note: Kirby H. arrived late to the candidate forum, stood in the back of the room, didn't participate in any way during the question and answer session, and talked only to a few selected friends after the forum was over] I did attend the forum, along with about two dozen others. It would have been great to see you there! Town Clerk Williamson presented the nuts and bolts of being a candidate in a municipal election, and Mayor Koenig spoke to some specifics about her position and the role of a trustee. I'm sure they'd be happy to share their perspectives for your article. Here is what appeared in the T-G article on the candidate forum, under the headline "Candidate forum draws more than a dozen attendees" [Ed. note: not the actual number, just an estimate, when the actual number was provided by me, and by Suzanna Simpson - Is 23 more than a dozen, or almost two dozen?]: The Town of Estes Park held a candidate information forum on Jan. 2 in the town board room of town hall, with 23 people in attendance according to Town Management Analyst Suzanna Simpson, including current Trustees Barbara MacAlpine, Frank Lancaster and Cindy Youngland and Mayor Wendy Koenig. In total, three candidate packets for mayor and nine packets for the trustee position were handed out as of Wednesday afternoon. Information on who picked up the packets was not disclosed. The Trail-Gazette has reached out for additional comment [Ed. note: Apparently not from people actually in attendance]. "Town Clerk Williamson presented the nuts and bolts of being a candidate in a municipal election, and Mayor Koenig spoke to some specifics about her position and the role of a trustee," said Trustee Kirby Hazelton, who was also in attendance [Ed. note: barely]. WTF? Can we have, do we deserve, an actual newspaper in this godforsaken town, relying on actual trained reporters or people paid to write actual articles rather than New Mexico travelogues, or do I have to keep working for free to provide the real story of what is really going on in this sorry-ass idiot-crammed village?