Fox 59 Faceoff on Water / Sewer Utility Sale Making Quite a Splash

The debate between Council President, Ryan Vaughn, and Council Minority Leader, Joanne Sanders, shown on Fox 59's Faceoff on July 6, is making quite a splash in the blogosphere.

Here is the short video version:



Here is a link to the longer video, which is 14 minutes long. This link will also get you to a written position for both debaters.

The blogs are strongly siding with Joanne Sanders as the winner of this debate.

In "Ryan Vaughn Must Be Insane", the Bart Lies ! blogger makes a number of excellent points. One stands out, and that is the idea that selling the water company does not make the enormous $900 million debt go away - it only transfers it to Citizen's Energy, where ratepayers will be on the hook through Citizens, instead of through the City.

Jon Easter over at Indy Democrat, said that "Sanders whooped up on Vaughn who appeared to be out-of-touch with the prevailing opinion on the street".

Paul Ogden posted "Ryan Vaughn's Rough Week; Vaughn Loses Debates, Called "Insane" and a "Liberal Big Spender" by Members of His Own Party", wherein he brings up a number of issues, including "Vaughn has no answer - none- to the point that the Mayor's plan involves taking out a 30 year loan to pay for improvements that won't last 10 years".

Indy Student reiterates that Vaughn has a "clear conflict of interest", being an Associate with Barnes & Thornburg.

The folks over at Indy's Political Stock Exchange called it a "pummeling" of Vaughn.

Abdul, at the Indiana Barrister, who supports the deal, didn't have any comment on the debate specifically. But, he did let Think Again pen a rebuttal that focused on Vaughn's debate points. That was followed by a rebuttal of Think Twice's piece by Vaughn. The comment thread on this particular post has a good deal of vitality to it. The comments are not about the Fox 59 Faceoff debate, but are debate points on the sale of the water company itself.

If you are still looking at the water / sewer utility deal issues, Fox 59 has indeed spurred some very good public discussion.