District 4 Debate - Chew Your (Sound) Bites Carefully

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I've got to ask, is the Herald's political desk asleep at the wheel? Where was their coverage of last night's debate between candidates for City Commissioner District 4? Why are they shying away from their duty to inform the public about the candidates and their platforms? A day or so ago, an excellent question was posed by an anonymous commenter regarding the perceived lack of viable candidates for local government positions. He/she asked:

Who has the stomach to run for office? ... Where are our independent, hardworking (employed), problem solvers, that are ready to offer fresh new perspectives and ideas?

In theory, the Herald's supposed to tell us who said what where and when, and then we citizens can endeavor to answer the above two questions. In this case, they seemed to have dropped the ball. Well, I was there last night for the debate between incumbent Ernesto De Leon, and his two challengers, Justin Ramos and Edward Camarillo. Once again, South Texans for Good Government hosted it. With nary a reporter in sight, I attempted to capture some of the highlights of the evening via video, shaky camera and all, and find some answers for myself.

The recent passage of the $68 million UTB-TSC bond issue and where the candidates stood on it was a primary topic of the evening. When it was Commissioner De Leon's turn at bat, he offered his view (click for video, 68 secs long):

Edward Camarillo, former Student Government President at UTB-TSC, touted his service in AmeriCorps and relayed what he's learned from that and the pursuit of his Masters degree.(click for video, 95 secs long):

Justin Ramos, current Brownsville Citizen's Advisory Board member (appointed by Commissioner De Leon, in fact), missed much of the debate trying to recover from an errant M&M down his windpipe (no, I'm not making this up). He seemed to fare best during his introduction, I guess. (click for video, 110 secs long).

I'm not sure I came out of this debate any wiser, and I realize the video bits I provided don't really flesh out the candidates much. But, honestly, there wasn't a whole lot of meat to this one. Just pieces of broken candy and a sparse sandwich here or there. Here's hoping things improve a bit (my camera-work included) for the District 3 debate in three weeks.