text: School consolidation, health care stir interest
  Published 11:33 am Friday, October 19, 2012
  High school consolidation and health care generated some of the clearest answers Thursday night at a forum for federal and local candidates on the Nov. 6 general election ballot.
  Ten of 21 candidates who’ll be on the ballot in Warren County attended and were held to 2-minute responses to questions posed by some of about 25 people who sat in for the 2-hour program organized by Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Blacks in Government and the Vicksburg chapter of the NAACP.
  Combining Vicksburg and Warren Central high schools — a hot topic at two meetings of parents and Vicksburg Warren School District officials this month about the future of the system — didn’t win immediate praise from either District 2 Trustee Zelmarine Murphy or her challenger in the race, former VHS football coach Alonzo Stevens.
  Murphy, 67, is seeking a fifth, six-year term on the five-member board. When a direct question was asked, she stressed the matter hasn’t come up for a vote and took no official position.
  “That question has not come before the board,” Murphy said. “It is talked about in the community. I have not seen a feasibility report to tell me how much it’s going to cost. How many layouts we’re going to have. It’s all about academics with me.”
  “Certainly, I’m a football freak and all of you know that,” said Murphy, animated in her responses compared to Stevens’ stillness at the lectern. “But, it’s not about athletics. We’d love to have an athletic complex. But, the bottom line is to educate our children so they can stand in the marketplace.”
  Stevens, 60, responded with a simple, “No” to the question, when asked whether he supports consolidation.
  “When you talk consolidation, you need to have figures,” Stevens said, adding the board, superintendent, students and teachers should make sure they’re “on the same page.”
  “The school system as-is, is a good school system,” he said. “The main problem is not consolidation, but organization.”
  The District 2 seat is the lone position on the board on this year’s ballot, headlined by the presidential race between President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
  Neither U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson nor U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker attended the forum. Thompson, a Democrat first elected in 1993, is vying for a 10th full term representing the 2nd Congressional District. Wicker, a Republican, is facing voters in Mississippi a second time since winning former Sen. Trent Lott’s seat in a special election in 2008.
  Challengers, however, kept things interesting when the subject turned to the contentious Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
  “I would not vote to repeal it,” said Democrat Albert N. Gore Jr., of Starkville, an 82-year-old retired Army veteran and one of three on the ballot for Wicker’s seat in the Senate. “I would expand it and cover all people. Whether they’re black, white or all shades in between.”
  Thomas Cramer, of Vancleave, of the Constitution Party, and Shawn O’Hara, of Hattiesburg, of the Reform Party, round out the ballot for Wicker’s seat. O’Hara did not attend; Cramer did and opposed most federal involvement in health care.
  “I’d vote to repeal,” Cramer said. “It’s unaffordable, it’s unsustainable. If you have an unaffordable, unsustainable program, it’s not doing anybody any good.”
  Republican Bill Marcy, making a second run against Thompson in as many elections, mixed his opposition of health care with a defense of his party affiliation.
  “I am on the Republican ticket, but the Republican Party’s having a hard time chewing on me,” Marcy said. “Because I am not bought and paid for by them. But, as far as Obamacare, it’s something we didn’t need.”
  Cobby Mondale Williams, an independent, and Lejena Williams of the Reform Party, who did not attend, round out the ballot for Thompson’s seat. Cobby, of Canton, a former Department of Transportation planner, said he favored the law, with unspecified private sector help.
  Multiple questions posed to the candidates had little to do with the office they seek, including ones about last year’s personhood initiative in Mississippi and whether nursing homes should be held accountable for the actions of their employees.
  “We have an opinion, but don’t have a dog in the race,” Cramer said, after pointing out last year’s divisive personhood amendment, which was defeated last fall.
  Moderator Debra Goodman pressed the candidates for their opinions anyway, to which the grandfatherly Gore responded with one of his several lines that drew laughs.
  “I don’t see any need for it,” he said. “Now, when does someone become a human being? Only the good Lord knows that. It could be any time from that night until nine months later.”
  Court of Appeals Judge Ermea Russell attended, while challenger Ceola James did not. They vie for Russell’s District 2, Place 2 seat on the appellate court.
  Three of nine candidates in contested races on the Warren County Election Commission showed up. All fielded questions about accomplishments and qualifications on the five-member panel, which conducts all general and special elections and oversees voter enrollment and assigns polling places.
  “In District 1, we’ve brought our active voter rolls down to where we have approximately as many voters as we do adults,” District 1 Commissioner Petesy Smith said. She is opposed for a second term by Jan Whatley, a longtime poll manager in the district.
  “I’ve gotten rid of a lot of dead people (from the rolls),” Smith said. “They’re good and buried. The people that have moved away, we’ve followed the process and they’re no longer on the rolls. I’d like to continue that.”
  Whatley said keeping rolls consistent with actual registration is key.
  Sara Carlson Dionne, a poll worker in District 4 who is challenging incumbent John Rundell, who did not attend the forum, said training for poll workers needs to be more consistent. His position “is to make the job as easy as you can for the voters and the workers.”
  District 5 incumbent Lonnie Wooley is opposed by Robert Croisdale and Gordon Cordes. None attended Thursday’s forum. District 2 Commissioner Retha Summers and District 3 Commissioner Elva Smith-Tolliver are unopposed and didn’t show.
  Supreme Court candidates William Waller Jr., the court’s chief justice, and Earle Banks will appear on the ballot for the District 1, Place 1. Neither attended Thursday’s forum.