The four candidates for Mayor of DeKalb were invited to participate in this survey for our readers to compare where they stand on issues facing the city. All but one candidate completed the survey. John Rey chose not to.
“I am going to have to pass this DeKalb County Online opportunity at this time – just do not have time to devote to the survey in its format of agree-disagree. I find many of the queries require qualification. I do not have the time to prioritize this at this time. Sorry to disappoint you,” wrote Rey in an email.
David Jacobson, Jennifer Groce and Mike Verbic prioritized DeKalb County Online readers and completed the survey. On your behalf we thank them for taking time from their busy schedules to help us make informed votes on April 9th.
The format of the survey was created by our attempt to accommodate many of the questions that were posed by readers. In addressing various topics the candidates had to select a “range of agreement” to statements related to the questions asked. Additional comments or clarifications are provided by each of the candidates. Read the question and each related statement to compare how the candidates fit your “range of agreement.”
The final question of the survey are questions the candidates asked of each other. Those will be posted next week.
To learn more about each of the participating candidates click on their photo to visit their campaign website.
Click Here To Submit A News Tip Or Story
22 Comments


I am looking for further detail on the survey question “We should ban assault weapons as a Home Rule Community.” Is the intent to ban the sale of assault weapons in the community? Are you proposing to confiscate this type of weapon from current owners in the event they are discovered to be in possession of these weapons? Or does this pertain to potential gun owners who wish to purchase this type of weapon in the future?

The intent was to ask the question so voters would know which way each candidate was leaning on the issue.

Ok Mac. I am looking to start a discussion about how to protect the constitutional and legal rights of our citizens, and identify the specific questions that would need to be asked of the candidates to achieve this goal. Essentially, I would like to turn the oral oath of office into a written one. So in the event a public city official, including our next Mayor, attempts to step outside the law and circumvent these rights, this would provide a mechanism for recalling or removing that public official, without having to wait until the next yearly review or election cycle.
If you agree with me that protecting the rights of our citizens is a top priority, and would like to host the discussion at your site, let me know. Otherwise we can have the discussion at the new Dekalb Central forum or perhaps Lynn might want to host it at her site.
I think it would be important to keep this an open discussion as much as possible, where anyone can express their opinion without being ridiculed or censored. As you might know, discussions on constitutional rights can become quite heated, so I can understand if you might shy away from hosting the discussion.
No rush on this I guess, but let me know in the next few days which way you are leaning. Thanks Mac.

This sounds like something for your new website. Good luck.

Lynn, what say you? If anyone else has an opinion on this, or an alternate option for hosting the discussion, let me know in the next few days. Thanks guys.

Nevermind Lynn, the proposal to have an open discussion was to create the public contract based on public consensus. I think it’s appropriate to encourage public discussion on the issue, but we can accomplish this goal without long-winded rants about gun control measures or other topics. I will simply create the document with the original intent of the constitution, and then ask for suggestions or revision if others decide this is necessary.
Of course, the candidates will have the choice whether to sign the document, but those who do will have the clear upper-hand regarding honesty, transparency, and accountability.

Given the comments… it seems like this could have been done better. It might make sense for Mr. McIntyre to work on better corrdinating his survey; providing the same amount of response time to all the canidates. It comes off biased if he is not making the same effort with all the canidates (and this is supposed to be about the canidates for mayor and the public not the media influence). After hearing about this, I am a little put off by the DCO for not handling this more professionally, local politics are very important and I would have liked to have heard Mr. Rey’s input on these matters, especially if he is willing to take the survey.

John Rey had as much time as the other candidates. The other candidates had completed their surveys. The log files show that the survey invitations were sent to the two email addresses we have on file and that they were delivered. There is always the potential of glitches in any system so when John emailed and said he had not received the survey invitation I resent it. Once he indicated he had received the invitation the clock started. He was given the same amount of time the other candidates were. His response is copied and pasted verbatim. He can fill out the survey anytime he wants but it will be published separately. I’m sure you and he can understand the advantage one candidate has when he is allowed to purview the other candidates’ answers before submitting his. And I agree, there is always room for improvement.

MM… your IP address and email address is logged and was used to submit a survey response from the link only provided to John Rey. Campaign operatives should identify themselves as such.

Mac-
I’m sorry to see “MM” is apparently connected to the John Rey campaign. Hard to believe Mr. Rey with a campaign slogan of “transparency” would first not respond in the same amount of time as allotted to other candidates, saying he was too busy, and then allow someone (“MM”) to use the same IP address to complain about this survey without full disclosure of who they are. I would say John Rey needs to step up quite a bit if he expects anyone to believe he would be a “transparent” mayor.
Also, Mac, in my earlier encouragement to John Rey to submit his survey response I said something like there is “still time”. I neglected to think about the advantage one candidate could gain over the others by not submitting at the same time, then reviewing the other candidate positions, and then submitting. Glad to see you were on to this tactic and will now publish Rey’s response (if he sends it) separately. I hope you also include a mention of the circumstances with his response.

My dear MM, here is what Mr. Rey actually said:
“I am going to have to pass this DeKalb County Online opportunity at this time – just do not have time to devote to the survey in its format of agree-disagree. I find many of the queries require qualification. I do not have the time to prioritize this at this time. Sorry to disappoint you.”
Mr. Rey obviously had better things to do, and I’m very sure he himself would not blame Mr. McIntyre for a decision that is his alone, especially when it is obvious 75% of the mayoral candidates had no problem completing the survey.

I received the survey Monday evening at 5 p.m., having informed Mac that I had not previously received any survey communication from him. All I had seen was the public portion of the survey online and as a candidate did not want to take the public suevey. Mac admitted there was some technology glitch that prevented my receiving the suvey with other candidates. He did ask confirmation of my receipt with the Monday transmission.
I will be working to respond to the questions as time permits – most likely with Additional Comments, because I find many of them do not fit an Agree-Disagree format. I am sure DC OnLine readers will understand my position on this matter.

Not quite sure I understand why you could not respond with the other candidates, John Rey, but there is still time. I encourage you to get your responses and comments in there with the others as soon as you can so we citizens can know where you stand alongside the other candidates.
For the rest of you candidates, thank you for telling us where you stand. No survey is perfect, but it gives the public a place to start in understanding and asking questions. I’m sure there will be more exchange as time goes on…
And a big THANKS to Mac and Grace for getting this online.

Mr. Mellot – I think one of the issues is that Mr. Rey did not receive the survey until several days after the other candidates. At least that is what I gather from the comments on here. There may be other issues I am not aware of.

Sorry sould be Mr. Mellott.

John Rey wrote, “I am going to have to pass this DeKalb County Online opportunity at this time – just do not have time to devote to the survey in its format of agree-disagree. I find many of the queries require qualification.”
In defense of Mr. Rey, I think some of the candidates might prefer the format of question-answer versus agree-disagree. His desire for “qualification” would equate to wanting to answer the questions directly, and not be misinterpreted or taken out of context.
That being said, he had the opportunity to qualify the answers as the other candidates have done. So maybe he just needs more time as he indicated, or would prefer to use the question-answer format. Mr. Rey, please correct me if this is an incorrect interpretation of your opinion.
Big thanks to all for your time and input. I was at first disappointed by the proposal of this format, but we have lots of writing from the candidates to read through.
Lynn, you were right, 180 people here at the time of this posting.

I know I will not have the time to vote for John Rey. Maybe one of the others, or Mickey Mouse as a write-in, but not for Rey.

Too bad John Rey couldn’t participate… must not be a priority to let the voters know how he feels about issues. Hmmm…

What’s John Rey’s priority, then? If he mentions tonight once again that he is Mr. Transparency/Open Door Guy, the audience may very well laugh. I see there are 100 visitors here at this moment and that is as low a number as this site will see during the day.

Most people I have spoken with were disappointed with the quality of this survey, and the survey approach. Maybe next time it could be done better. Although, the attempt and the info here might provide some value to new voters.

MM – If You do indeed work for the “REY CAMPAIGN”, please identify yourself. Mr Rey should respond to the questions in this survey and not duck the issues. It’s shameful that a man who states he will have an open door policy will not take a “public survey”…..I’m sorry to see that Mr Rey is avoiding the public. Sounds like he would make an excellent “Povlsen II”. That’s how our current mayor governs. Mr Rey, I too will NOT be voting for you and will encourage others to do the same
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I would like to thank DeKalb County Online for this survey. Contrary to several commenters here I personally feel that the questions asked of all of the candidates were questions that need to be asked and have been pretty much answered by three of the four candidates. It is very unfortunate that in such an important race for DeKalb that John Rey made the decision he did by not taking the time to answer this survey. Here is Mr. Rey’s own response as to why he refused to answer these questions.
“I am going to have to pass this DeKalb County Online opportunity at this time – just do not have time to devote to the survey in its format of agree-disagree. I find many of the queries require qualification. I do not have the time to prioritize this at this time. Sorry to disappoint you,”
I was going to respond to this survey after reading it the first time but decided to hold off and reread the survey as to figure out why Mr. Rey was afraid to answer to survey. The whole basis of his refusal was the Agree/Disagree format which is confusing as there are five levels of which to Agree/Disagree to. Rey also goes on to say that there are many queries that require qualification which is also confusing because each candidate was given the opportunity to qualify each response in text and it appears to me that DeKalb County Online gave each candidate the opportunity to do so without a restriction to the length of their responses. How much more fair can a survey be and if Mr. Rey had no opinion formed yet he could have easily responsed “No Opinion Formed As of Yet” and even elaborated as to why he felt that way in text as Mike Verbic did several times and Jennifer Groce did 11 times. To me I cannot take Mr. Rey’s responses seriously now if and when he responds and if DeKalb County Online publishes it as he would definitely have had an unfair advantage over the other three candidates to form his answers based off of theirs.
I also believe that this type of a format gives the candidate a much better opportunity to think about their answer and to research the question a little more before they answer the question unlike most candidate nights where they are given a time limit to respond to a question they have little time to prepare for. The best part of this type of survey that DeKalb County Online provided is that the candidates answers are on public record now for all to read and ponder at their convenience and not in a public hearing format where there are difficulties in hearing responses and time constraints do not give all the candidates the proper time to qualify their responses.
One suggestion to DeKalb County Online is that maybe the next time they do this type of a survey that maybe they offer the candidates an opportunity to add something to the survey that they felt was missed in the above questions or to add a strength they feel they offer to that particular race. Besides this I would have to rate this survey a 95 out of a 100 and that is only because Mr. Rey decided that he did not wish to participate so DeKalb County Online, Mac McIntyre and Grace Mott thank you for your time and effort here to provide the four DeKalb Mayoral candidates and opportunity to let the DeKalb voters know their stance on some very important questions about our local government.
What I got out of the survey personally is this. I was truly surprised on several questions and the responses that were given. David Jacobson showed me with his responses that he is in fact very knowledgeable about the issues surrounding DeKalb at this time. I appreciated Mr. Jacobson’s answers and the effort he made to make sure that all knew his exact position and why to many of the questions. Candidates Groce and Verbic also made the attempt but fell short on many of the questions. My real disappointment came with Ms. Groce in that she felt it easier to mark “No Opinion Formed as of Yet”. I would have hoped that all the candidates would have understood how important this mayoral race is for DeKalb and found a way to form some type of an opinion on these important questions. DeKalb and its issues are much more than just what is going on in our downtown. There are many neighborhoods that need immediate attention and DeKalb needs a mayor and city council that understand that.
Several of the candidates seem to embrace DeKalb’s current direction and that is surprising because the direction of borrowing and spending is hurting the future of this community. It was nice to see the candidates responses to these type of questions which is very important to me because I personally feel that we have no real direction and as long as all our governmental entities are doing their own thing and trying to spend as much money as they can, this cannot be allowed to happen. We need to get together and work together to set priorities on real needs for this community and address them in an order that is feasible at this current time that we see our economy in distress. We cannot continue to overbuild and overspend such as was shown during the construction of the new high school and is now being shown with the new police station. I hope the rumors that I am hearing about a $5 million overrun on the police station is wrong but my sources are rarely wrong and this is unfortunate and only tells me that if so, the current administration at DeKalb’s City Hall has got to go. I was also glad to see the candidates responses to this issue.
I had a candidate that I did favor as this election formed but reading this survey and taking in several other candidate nights my candidate is rapidly changing as we need a mayor who is transparent and not afraid to speak up. Right now that candidate to me is David Jacobson. It truly is unfortunate that Mr. Rey did not feel this survey to be important enough to answer which only leads me to believe that if he is elected that it could only continue to be the same old city hall of zero transparency and spend borrow and spend attitude that they have today.
Once again DeKalb County Online staff for this survey. It is very much appreciated and welcomed by this taxpayer and voter.
Ivan H. Krpan