Onondaga County District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick is seeking an eighth term in November. This year, he has two challengers, Democrat Charles Keller and Conservative candidate Gary Lavine. This week, Grant Reeher speaks with Fitzpatrick about some of the criticisms leveled against him, and what Fitzpatrick would do in an eighth term.
A Note of Explanation From Campbell Conversations Host Grant Reeher
Why is this an individual interview with District Attorney Fitzpatrick rather than a debate?
We issued invitations to participate in a debate on August 27th. Leading up to that date, we did an analysis of the race, seeking to determine whether we should include third-party candidate Gary Lavine in the invitation. A half-hour broadcast is a limited amount of time, and we want to provide the most relevant information that we can for our listeners.
As of August 27th, we determined that there was little evidence of an active campaign on behalf of Mr. Lavine’s own election, using the traditional markers for that activity. We also floated that conclusion by two independent observers of local politics. As a result of that process we went forward with invitations to Mr. Fitzpatrick and Charles Keller, the Democratic nominee (Keller was interviewed on the program in August).
We also informed each of them that should only one candidate agree to participate in the debate, we would go forward with an individual interview of that candidate. This is a practice that we have followed on this program in past debates, involving other races. Unfortunately, Mr. Keller ultimately declined our invitation, and so, as we said to both candidates, we went forward with an individual interview of District Attorney Fitzpatrick.
