On Friday I attended a Detroit City Council candidate forum with my sponsor and a few of our members. The candidate forum was out at w.8 mile and telegraph, so I was pretty excited to get to see some other parts of Detroit. We were at the candidate forum to present on our Good Food Good Jobs campaign. We wanted to educated the public and city council candidates about our campaign. We were really excited because one of the questions at the forum was if they would support Good Food Good Jobs. Unfortunately we never got to hear the answer to the questions because the women in charge of the event and the moderator fainted halfway through the forum (she is fine now). The event was held in a church and there was over 100 people there. The Church did not have air conditioning so the room was about 90+ degrees. After she fainted they wrapped up the candidate forum so we never got to hear if the candidates support our legislation. We did go up and talk to them after and the said they support our legislation. Unfortunately such “off the record” support means very little in politics. We did have some people who are currently in office and running for reelection come up to us and want to schedule meetings which was great! Good Food Good Jobs is currently stuck in city council (and we have not been able to get a meeting with anybody in city council) so we are excited by the prospect of getting a meeting with someone.
It was my first candidate forum and my first time at an event at a church ( I am Jewish) so I was really surprised when they started the candidate forum with a prayer. In my synagogue the only we start an event with prayer is if that event it religious (such as a service, or a Jewish holiday dinner),so i was surprised to have a prayer start a non-religious event (particularly a political event). The youth minister (pastor? ) led the prayer and in it he asked that (among different things) Jesus be welcomed into politics, and who ever won the elections did so because G-d had chosen them to win. I stood out of respect but felt slightly uncomfortable about some of the things that he was praying for especially the part about bringing Jesus into politics. Overall, the part of the candidate forum that I saw was really good and interesting. It was interesting to learn more about Detroit politics and other issues that Detroiters care about.
