A proposal by the Student Association would have positioned Mayor Matt Ryan of Binghamton and Independent Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader at a round table discussion next week.
But because of scheduling conflicts within Ryan’s office, the meeting, which would have taken place at Binghamton University, could not occur. Ryan will be campaigning for Barack Obama and will not be in the city of Binghamton during the coming days before the election, according to Andrew Block, director of Community Relations for the city of Binghamton.
Josh Berk, Student Assembly chair for the Student Association, came up with the proposal and promoted it to Nader’s office, who he said loved the idea.
Nader’s office agreed to the proposal after speaking with Student Association members about the idea of a discussion between the presidential candidate and the mayor of a city such as Binghamton, Berk said.
“Nader had already campaigned here, and had plans to go to Michigan and Florida,” Berk said.
SA President Matt Landau said that the mayor’s office was contacted Wednesday, Oct. 22, while Nader’s office was contacted the week before.
“The topic of the discussion would have been up to the students,” Berk said. “We would have administered some sort of town hall discussion, similar to the third presidential debate, and asked the candidates questions.”
According to Berk, the point of the forum would have been to have the campus and Binghamton communities engage in issues that affect both the country as a whole and the city that students and residents live and work in.
Berk said that he and other members of the SA are puzzled by Mayor Ryan’s reason for his unavailability, and feel that he gave a trivial reason for not being able to attend.
“I think that Mayor Ryan put politics before educating Binghamton students,” Landau said.
According to Block, Ryan didn’t want the discussion to detract from his efforts to support Democratic presidential candidate Obama, and that he didn’t want it to seem like he was endorsing anyone but Obama.
“The mayor is certainly interested in discussing how national issues effect local government and how to fix policies on a national level so local levels will benefit,” Block explained. “Mayor Ryan would certainly be open to taking part in a similar discussion in the future. We will welcome the invitation to take part.”
It is still a hope of the SA that a discussion of similar structure could happen in the future.
“It would have been an excellent opportunity and a privilege for the Binghamton area and its students to engage a presidential candidate and a mayor at the same time,” Berk said. “The discussion would give us an opportunity to expose so many policy decisions and poke in at what policies could fundamentally work at municipal level and what policies don’t.”
Though the Student Association initially sought a third party other than Ryan to participate in the debate, Berk said that when the group couldn’t find anyone else to meet on its terms, members thought to propose the idea to Ryan’s office.