Friday, October 28, 2005
By DAVID REID
(click here
for the link to this article on MassLive.com)
HOLYOKE - A defective audio cable in the control room of the High School's "state-of-the-art" broadcast center turned Wednesday night's pre-election candidate forum into a silent movie.
While the cameras continued to roll in the school auditorium, 26 City Council candidates introduced themselves and answered reporters' questions in front of about 150 people.
Unfortunately, no one at home could hear a word.
For several ward or citywide candidates new to city politics, the lack of an audience crippled their ability to make a direct connection with voters 13 days before the Nov. 8 election.
"It's definitely a setback and a disappointment," said At-large City Council candidate Patricia A. Duffy last night.
Duffy, a marketing assistant for the Commonwealth Opera Company, said she has been knocking on doors and campaigning since March.
Still, she said, the failed broadcast hurt the campaign as well as voters expecting an education at home.
"It's a big loss for them, too," she said.
Communications media administrator Laura T. Dupont, who runs the broadcast facility, said yesterday that the problem was found shortly before the 6:30 p.m. forum began.
Although the video feed to the city's government-access channel was tested earlier that day, and the audio feed was working to the console, the sound never made it through, she said.
Consultants were called, as was the cable provider, Comcast, but nothing was found until the following morning, when the faulty cable was identified.
"We were all very upset by this," said Dupont. "It was painful."
She said that Wednesday's event was the first time the studio, which opened in May after $180,000 worth of upgrades, was used to broadcast live on Cable Channel 15. She said no tape of the event was available for later broadcast.
For Ward 6 City Councilor Mark A. Lubold, who is challenging Mayor Michael J. Sullivan, the failed broadcast was a setback of sorts.
On Oct. 11, Lubold finished 25 percentage points behind Sullivan, and needed a boost. That boost could have come if voters had heard and heeded his hard-hitting message that the city needs new leadership and direction.
Before taking the stage, Lubold said yesterday, he asked forum sponsors - the Chamber of Commerce and the Holyoke Taxpayers Association - whether the event should be rescheduled for next week.
"They said no," he reported.
Chamber President Doris M. Ransford said it was an unfortunate result for an event everyone worked hard to make fair, but that rescheduling it was impossible.
And Mayor Sullivan said a tape of a mayoral forum to be conducted on Nov. 2 at Holyoke Community College will be aired on Channel 15 several times before Nov. 8.
While he wished that his message of sound fiscal and municipal leadership could have reached homebound voters, the mayor said, "Ultimately, it was fair to everybody ... except to the people who wanted to watch it at home."