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.”