PUTNEY — To Jerry Levy, Aaron Diamonstone and Windham County Voters:
Becca Balint and I were a bit saddened and surprised to see the letter from you in last week's Commons.
Your letter made it sound as if we refused to participate in forums where all candidates have been invited. This is not true.
You, Jerry, came to the Windham County Democratic Party meeting to ask if the Democrats wanted to co-sponsor a forum. After much discussion, the vote of all those present was not to do so for a number of reasons.
You also mentioned that you did not pursue being in the forums during the primary, although you did attend. The simple reason you were not invited to participate in those forums is that the forums during a primary are sponsored by parties for their own candidates because this is the way the parties choose who will be on their ballot.
During the general election, forums are usually sponsored by civic groups rather than parties. In fact, two have already been scheduled for this election. One is on Oct. 14 in Brattleboro (the same day that you picked for your forum) sponsored by the Vermont Worker's Center. All the candidates have been invited - not sure if all have accepted, we have.
The other one is in Dover on Oct. 22 sponsored by the Deerfield Valley Rotary and the Deerfield Valley News. All candidates again have been invited, and we have both accepted. There is normally one in Bellows Falls; I don't know if it will be held this year, but if it is, we will accept.
So we, the Democratic candidates, did not refuse to attend a forum where all candidates would be invited. We have already accepted two.
What did happen is that the Windham County Democrats chose not to cosponsor another forum in Brattleboro on the same night as the Worker's Forum.
We feel it is important for the voters of Windham County to know what actually happened.