Quirk-Silva Refuses to Debate Norby
Posted by Former Blogger Chris Emami on October 26, 2012
The most important question: why am I finding out Norby news from the OC Weekly and Fullerton’s Future instead of from my OC Political co-founder? Oh well, it is what it is.
The OC Weekly ran a piece this morning called “Is Challenger Sharon Quirk-Silva Afraid to Debate Assemblyman Chris Norby?”
http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2012/10/chris_norby_sharon_quirk_silva.php
Fullerton’s Future broke the story first (but I somehow didn’t see their post until I saw it linked from the Weekly): http://www.fullertonsfuture.org/2012/quirk-is-afraid-of-would-be-anaheim-constituents-blows-off-meeting/
They had a link to the website of the West Island Neighbors, the community group for the large unincorporated Anaheim Island, who had this posted on their web site:
“The West Island Neighbors will be holding a special Election 2012 meeting on Friday, October 26 @ 7:00PM. Our Assemblyman Chris Norby will explain the ballot initiatives and let us know why he deserves to be reelected as our Assemblyman. We invited his challenger, Sharon Quirk-Silva, to attend but she declined.”
The OC Weekly article had this quote:
“To the best of my knowledge, we’ve had two requests,” said Bill Wachob, a Quirk-Silva campaign spokesman. “(One) was from Anaheim on a night that Sharon had a council meeting. We told them she wouldn’t be available and we never heard back.”
I didn’t know Fullerton had City Council meetings on Friday nights. And apparently neither does Fullerton’s webmaster: http://ci.fullerton.ca.us/about/meetings_live.asp
The OC Weekly pointed that out to Quirk-Silva’s spokesman, and well:
But when the Weekly mentioned the message on the WIN group’s website, whose event timing does not conflict with Fullerton City Council Meetings (held on Tuesdays), Wachob seemed perplexed.
“I guess I’d be surprised if they had it on their web site that she declined the opportunity to attend,” he said.
There was also an attempt by the Cypress Chamber of Commerce to hold a candidate forum:
He explained that Quirk-Silva, who works a teacher with the Fullerton School District and is currently mayor of Fullerton, spends her free time vigorously campaigning, personally drumming up support by going door to door and meeting groups.
“The Cypress Chamber of Commerce had given us two or three dates and they cleared those dates with Norby,” Wachob said. “They happened to be dates that Sharon was working.”
Wait a minute: Quirk-Silva teaches at Richman Elementary, which according to their bell schedule ends the day at 2:24 PM (http://fsd.k12.ca.us/richman/staff.html and http://fsd.k12.ca.us/richman/dailySchedule.html).
How could she be working all the dates that the Cypress Chamber offered as candidate forum dates when those candidate forums would be at night?
Maybe Norby’s spokesman, former Senator John Lewis, has it figured out:
“It’s not a fair fight intellectually,” said Lewis. “Chris is a brilliant guy, he understands government, he understands public policy, and Sharon Quirk Silva’s just not as good on the uptick.”
OC Political 
Greg Diamond said
Oh dear, where to begin?
Do I begin with Norby’s own refusal to debate Esiquio Uballe two years ago — rendering all of this hypocritical — or with Huff’s refusal to debate me in the SD-29 race, or with Ed Royce’s refusal to debate or even be seen on the same stage and probably in the same city, if possible, as Jay Chen? (Talk about “not a fair fight intellectually” — that’d describe a debate between the Harvard grad, businessman, and intelligence officer and the guy who can’t figure out that it’s a really stupid idea to mimic Debra Pauly.)
Norby has had MONTHS and MONTHS to demand a debate from Quirk-Silva — when it wouldn’t be in the final quarter-mile of the marathon, when her schedule is understandably already packed and when even the Presidential debates are finished. So why’s he suddenly doing it now?
Maybe it’s because he didn’t realize until recently that he was losing. (Some bad polls just come in for you, champ?)
As for you, Chris: Quirk-Silva works two jobs — not counting the third full-time job of campaigning. So the final bell at Richman Elementary rings at 2:24, does it? Do you think that that’s when the teachers’ work is done? Or, more pertinently, do you think that the end of day bell rings at the Fullerton City Hall as well? Or, beyond that, do you think that her schedule isn’t packed since Norby suddenly made his recent overture for debates? That’s really your argument? Like Jay Chen, Quirk-Silva is a remorseless campaigning machine. That takes time. Like me, Bob Huff, and Ed Royce, Chris Norby isn’t — but at least I have a better excuse. (Unlike him, I have to earn a living.) So when she said she was “working” on the days for the Cypress Chamber event, that could well mean that she had events scheduled to work on her campaign, e.g. fundraising.
As for the West Island Neighbors debate, I did something that apparently neither you nor the Weekly did — I went to their website (http://westislandsneighbors.org/) and read more than one paragraph of it. There I found this quote: “WIN’s Meetings: 1st Tuesday of every month (unless otherwise noted) at 7:00 PM at Big Adventure School, 9641 Cerritos Ave.”
And … Fullerton’s Council meetings are scheduled at that exact same time.
This suggests several possibilities besides her just turning them down flat. One is that someone called her campaign and gave them the wrong information, based on their customary meeting time and so the campaign demurred. Another is that the campaign sought out the information, but perhaps reached an uninformed person and received the wrong meeting time. Yet another is that WING had actually planned the debate for their normal meeting time and changed it after learning of the schedule conflict, but didn’t try hard enough to touch base with her. Or maybe people in WING are supporting Norby, with whom they’ve had a long-standing relationship dating back to his days as a Supervisor — see http://www.ocregister.com/news/university-25803-county-information.html — and are coming up with a fake “atrocity” to try to sabotage her.
Hard to say, but I’ll bet that it was just a snafu on the part of WING.
And finally, let’s dispense with the egregious embarrassment of “Norby’s spokesman, former Senator John Lewis,” who said: “It’s not a fair fight intellectually. Chris is a brilliant guy, he understands government, he understands public policy, and Sharon Quirk Silva’s just not as good on the uptick.” (I think he meant “uptake,” not “uptick” — if he meant anything at all.)
This is the same John Lewis who said that 2006 would be “an extremely important year for Orange County. Sheriff Carona’s re-election is going to be huge. He has done a great job in making Orange County one of the safest places in America to live and work and we are working to make sure he has four more years to lead the brave men and women of the Sheriff’s Department.” THE MAN IS CLEARLY A GREAT JUDGE OF CHARACTER!
But putting aside Lewis’s smug sexism (which I sure that, if he went to one of those “pick up women” seminars in between one pair of marriages, Norby was told that the ladies loved), here’s the problem with Lewis’s statement: Norby is NOT a “brilliant guy” and he neither understands government (except that it’s been paying him on time for decades now) nor public policy. He’s a one-trick pony whose standard prescription for any problem is that government needs to be strangled until it stops breathing — and then everything’s OK.
That may pass for “brilliance” for a guy like John Lewis, but I’ll bet that you’re smarter than that. Right, Chris?
(For the record, I’ve not communicated with anyone connected with the Quirk-Silva campaign, from candidate down to clerical volunteer, about the content of this comment. Norby just pisses me off for reasons that I expect will become more clear if he ever responds to a documentary request that I made on FFFF, but that out of deference to the sensibilities of the Chrises I will not repeat here.)
Gene said
Norby has no spine, and he seems in danger of losing this race. That means unemployment as well. Norby’s never had a spine. He’s let his hired staff do the dirty work in the past while he fuels his personal problems while he’s not sleeping one off in front of the courthouse. He deserves whatever he gets and there are plenty of people who wouldn’t at all mind seeing this guy out of local politics. Maybe QS just doesn’t want to talk to someone intellectually inferior to herself.
Greg Diamond said
This comment has been redacted due to it not being written by the real Greg Diamond.
Greg Diamond said
Editors, that post at 8:53 a.m. this morning is not from me, but from someone wrongfully appropriating my name and identity..
I would like you to send me that person’s IP address and listed e-mail address, block both of them from your site, and then remove the offending message and any other message posted under my name that does not come from my IP address, which you have on file.
If a Democrat pulled that sort of thing, I’d condemn it; you do as your consciences dictate.
Chris Emami said
Just redacted it, thank you for the heads up.
Greg Diamond said
Thanks, Chris. I’d still like to know his IP address, etc. This is happening on at least one other site and I’m not going to take it lightly.