Gildea Says Technical Snafu Delayed Debate Airing

A technical snafu caused the delay in airing last week's mayoral debate on TV-36 according to Town Administrator Jim Gildea.

The Oct. 19 debate, sponsored by the League of Women Voters and the Westfield Leader, was supposed to start airing on the cable station last Friday and was delayed, causing concern with Democratic mayoral nominee Bill Brennan, who was concerned the tape was being withheld by his political opponents. Gildea said the tape could not air until formatted by the part time staff at TV-36, which did not occur until Wednesday, a delay caused partially by the hiring of a freelance crew to record the debate.

Once the tapes were formatted for both the Council and mayoral debates, Gildea said they were scheduled to start airing following Council meetings on the cable channel, saying those time slots attract an audience. He said the town mistakenly delivered two copies of the mayoral debate to the Leader, leaving two of the Council to show on TV-36, which was not caught until after the initial airing.

Brennan immediately started e-mailing Gildea and the newspaper in order to track down the tapes of the debate, the one between him and Republican Mayor Andy Skibitsky. Brennan has made debates a centerpiece of his campaign, calling for Skibitsky to meet him in as many as four debates during the campaign.

"I watched Friday at 4 and at 10 to watch the Mayoral debate and incredibly the council candidates were run back to back without the Mayoral debate being shown. To put it mildly I am extremely frustrated," Brennan wrote in an e-mail to Gildea.  "An entire week is now wasted. Please fix the problem. Gowing (s.i.c) forward, there is no reason this tape can't be shown more frequently. Why not run on Saturday or Tuesday and Thursdays?  It should also be run between 7-10:00 pm during the week. As you know I had problems with Channel 36 being the Andy channel even before this. Jim, I know you are an honorable man but this situation is ridiculous.  He avoids debating me the entire campaign and now when he finally debates me the tape gets buried."

In an interview with Westfield Patch, Brennan said he finds the control of the cable station by the Council as a problem when it comes to election campaigns.

"This is the problem when you have elected politicians running the television station," Brennan said in the interview. "(The mayor) avoided me the entire campaign and refused to debate me. He did not answer me when I asked him questions at Council meetings."

Gildea stressed politics was not a part of the decision making process and said he has communicated this to Brennan as well. In an interview with Westfield Patch, he noted that the technical aspects of needing eight hours to format the tapes for airing, followed by the mistaken delivery were the main causes. In addition, he notes that the station is controlled by both the town government and the Board of Education, splitting air time. The town airs programming on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with the school board controlling the airwaves on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The two entities share Sundays.

He said the debate will be airing six times a day between now and the election, on the days that the town government controls the airwaves. He said he will be in touch with the school board about using some of their airtime as well.

"It was an honest mistake," Gildea said of the mayoral debate delay.