JANESVILLE The 69蹤獲s town hall-style forum on the GM/JATCO ballot referendum gave six panelists a chance to sound off Wednesday night on six questions about the referendum and the GM/JATCO site.
The Q&A-style brought together members of Grow Janesville Responsibly, a group of mainly of local corporate and labor professionals who oppose the referendum, alongside the perspectives of the referendums supporters members of grassroots citizens groups who raised the public petition that ultimately vaulted the referendum onto the Nov. 3 election ballot.
As members of the two groups spoke, their competing perspectives were presented in a fishbowl of sorts, placed publicly, side-by-side, for voters to see and hear at a live event with an audience, and via a web broadcast.
Our questions were in a fishbowl, too literally. The 69蹤獲s moderators drew panelists questions out of an actual, glass fishbowl, a move intended to randomize the selection of the questions we asked.
We prepared more than a dozen questions for the event each question formed so that any member of the panel could answer it based on their own perspective.
We had enough time at Wednesday nights forum to get to six of the questions we ultimately placed in the glass bowl.
Thursday, the newsroom talked about our unasked questions, and we decided that some of those questions should not die on the vine.
Weve decided to re-open a handful of these questions to the panelists who attended the forum on Wednesday and well offer them up to the community, too.
Well give our forum panelists, and you, the community, until Thursday, Oct. 8 to respond as youd like.
If you didnt attend Wednesday nights forum or didnt have the chance to , The 69蹤獲 will keep video of the event available in the days leading up to the Nov. 3 election.
For now, wed like to pose the remaining questions as we continue our examination of the GM/JATCO referendum to try to help voters to make a well-informed decision.
The referendum asks voters if they want voters to have final authority to approve any development project at the GM/JATCO site that would total more than $450 million.
Here are the questions:
- The Janesville City Council has approved a 12-month, citywide moratorium on all data center developments, which is says would allow the city more time to research and craft policy and guardrails tied to data centers. Should voters take that moratorium into consideration when deciding on the GM/JATCO site referendum? Why or Why not?
- Do you think the GM-JATCO site would be best redeveloped through one or more large, transformational projects or would you rather see a more incremental process that might involve multiple, small, midsize projects over time? How does your belief impact your position on the referendum.
- What is something that you think voters could misunderstand about a Yes or No vote on the referendum, and what could that misunderstanding actually mean for the future of the GM/JATCO site?
If you’d like to offer answers to the questions The 69蹤獲 has posed in this article, please include the response in an email to City Editor Neil Johnson at neil@gazettextra.com.
We intend to report on responses we gather in an upcoming news article. We may even draw from some responses as a basis for further reporting. This is one way The 69蹤獲 can help create a town square for discussion of this referendum.
We hope youll help by offering us your voice and your thoughts.
Your response, if reasoned and rooted in clear fact, could help someone else make a good decision when they consider how to vote on the GM/JATCO referendum Nov. 3.