Will there be ‘love' at city hall?

Tuesday night's candidate's forums, sponsored by The Citizen, had a few surprises for those in attendance. The biggest by far is how well city councilor David Dempsey may have done against the party's endorsed mayoral candidate, former Auburn Fire Chief Michael Quill, in what is the first of what are likely to be several match ups this coming fall after Tuesday's Democratic primaries.

Questions didn't dance around the two issues that will top the discussion of each candidate over the next 53 days: Quill's role in fire department negotiations that resulted in major overtime bills (that lead to a forum discussion about his alleged repeated resignations); and Dempsey's personal troubles that have spilled into city hall.

What may have surprised most is that the two-term councilor did not pull any punches #- he struck hard on Quill's record #- maybe, with nothing to lose (and having the whole Democratic hierarchy against him) he felt he needed to draw debate blood, and did. By the way, neither candidate's answers and/or rebuttals were sufficient to say this is the end of the debate on these topics.