MANSFIELD — To the organizers of Thursday evening’s Mansfield Mayoral Debate, the 90-minute face-off between Republican incumbent Tim Theaker and Democratic challenger Don Bryant was a huge success.
Its purpose wasn’t to determine a winner, but rather to encourage civic engagement, explained Jay Allred, Richland Source publisher and Idea Works president.
“We needed, as voters, an extended period of time with the men who want to lead the city of Mansfield,” he said. “And this was an opportunity for us to give the community an extended amount of time to evaluate these two candidates and to evaluate who the better choice was for them.”
Another organizer and market president at iHeart Media Ashland-Mansfield, Margie Tasseff highlighted the nearly 500 people in attendance.
“The turnout out was way more than what we could have expected,” she said. “It’s great to see the community come together like this, because when they go to the polls now they’ll be informed.
“I think the audience got a good profile of both the candidates running.”
Jay Miller of DRM Productions echoed these sentiments.
“Mansfield has been moving forward, and I think, at this point, it needs someone who’s going to throw fuel on that fire, so it’s neat to see the community getting behind selecting who that next person will be,” he said. “We wanted to make it an engaging conversation, and it was that.”
More than 1,000 people registered for tickets to Thursday’s event.
“I think the fact that people are taking their evening on a Thursday to listen to two local candidates talk about fire hydrants and snow plows, it’s a signal that people are paying attention to who’s leading their city and they plan to hold them accountable,” Allred said.
He described Thursday evening as an “important exercise in democracy.”
“That is why in my opinion these organizations that came together to put this on, it wasn’t to see who was going to win the debate, it was to get people participating in their democracy,” he said.
The event’s organizers included Richland Source, iHeart radio, DRM Productions, Richland Young Professionals, Richland Area Chamber and Economic Development, the North End Community Improvement Collaborative and The Renaissance Theatre.
The panelists tasked with asking questions of the candidates were Richland Source Managing Editor Larry Phillips, retired Mansfield News Journal Publisher and Editor Tom Brennan, former WMFD-TV news anchor Brigitte Coles and Richland Source City Editor Carl Hunnell.
“They was a diverse group, people with different backgrounds,” Miller said. “But they were all journalists or former journalists, so they all knew how to moderate a panel. They knew how to be non-biased.
“They were people with the expertise to drive the engagement we were looking for so the audience had the experience they needed to make an informed decision.”
The questions asked to Theaker and Bryant Thursday were largely determined by Mansfield residents themselves. Questions were collected to Richland Source’s Open Source platform and through a six-week Talk the Vote “listening tour” that visited all six wards in the city.
During the tour, residents told Richland Source reporters what they wanted to hear mayoral candidates talk about as they campaigned for their votes.
“It was important for us to approach questions and theme development from a grassroots level because it’s the grassroots people who will be affected by the decisions a mayor makes,” Allred said. “The folks on that panel were asking the questions the citizens were asking. What was asked tonight were the questions that mattered to Mansfield citizens.”
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