Should There Be a Debate Before the Tinley Park Mayoral Election?

TINLEY PARK, IL - It has been more than one election cycle since there has been a debate ahead of the mayoral election in Tinley Park and it does not appear that there will be one this year although both candidates say they are open to the possibility.

For incumbent Dave Seaman, who heads the “Tinley First” slate in 2017, the group organizing the forum is key.

“We’d like to have it convened by the Chamber, have maybe a few questions for each candidate that have already been vetted and maybe one question from the audience,” said Seaman, a longtime Tinley Park trustee who became mayor in 2015 after the resignation of Ed Zabrocki.

“That’s a format we’d find acceptable,” Seaman said, noting that a group like the League of Women Voters or another “impartial” entity would need to be the organizer.

He won’t agree to a format that’s already been proposed, however.

Steve Eberhardt, a Tinley Park attorney who ran against Zabrocki in 2013, had the idea for a debate in this election cycle as early as September: when Seaman seemed to be open to the idea.

It would be organized by the TinleySparks community form and held at either a local VFW hall or at the Tinley Park Convention Center if a larger turnout was expected.

Eberhardt says Seaman initially responded to a request for the debate stating that once all the candidates were finalized they would be able to move forward on talk about a forum.

But a follow-up request in December, after all candidates had filed and Eberhart secured two Patch editors to serve as moderators, came with no response. Trustee Jacob Vandenberg, who heads the Concerned Citizens for Tinley Park slate in 2017, did respond and showed interest in participating in the TinleySparks form according to Eberhardt.

“It’s the old guard politics here where city politicians are upset if anyone questions something,” Eberhardt said about Seaman’s lack of a response after many of the details of the potential debate were organized. “I haven’t heard a word from him since September.”

Seaman says the debate format proposed then would have been biased.

“Eberhardt is clearly in their camp… he isn’t really who I would call a third party,” the mayor said.

It also wouldn’t add much to the conversation or offer anything new for voters to ponder, he added.

“Information sharing is one thing, but theatrics is quie another,” he said. “I think you would find yourself with an animated audience - for lack of a better word - that would be sitting out there and jeering.”

That format is a moot point anyway, however. Eberhardt says the TinleySparks debate sponsorship possibility is dead.
“We are a month away from the election,” he said. “Us sponsoring the debate is dead.”

It also wouldn’t be fair to hold a debate without Seaman, according to Eberhardt.

“Seaman ignoring it is a disservice to the other candidates,” Eberhardt said, noting trustee and clerk candidates would also have been part of the forum. “It has to be all of them. If we held it now it would give Seaman the opportunity to reply to anything said without a response.”

Vandenberg agrees with Eberhardt’s assertion regarding the incumbent mayor’s “disservice.”

“I have and remain ready to discuss the important issues facing our community in an open forum any place and any time,” he wrote in a statement to Tinley Park Patch. “Unfortunately, my opponent wants to run his campaign the same way he prefers to run city government – behind closed doors away from public scrutiny. We have many important issues and concerns facing our community. We should be having open, public forums to discuss our vision for the future of Tinley Park.”

And even with less than a month remaining in the election season, that may still be a possibility Seaman says.

“I’d still be open to something,” he said. “We’ve had conversations with Chamber leadership to address that. Nothing has been finalized but it is something in which I’m interested.”

Photo: Left, Dave Seaman, TinleyFirst / Right, Jacob Vandenberg, Concerned Citizens for Tinley Park