Past official to lead debate

Former Costa Mesa City Councilman Jay Humphrey will moderate his first debate tonight, quizzing the nine council hopefuls on issues brought to him by voters.

Organizers of the Mesa Verde Community Inc. Candidates’ Forum said all of the council hopefuls plan on attending the event at the Costa Mesa Neighborhood Community Center.

As a past city politician, serving on the council from 1990-94, Humphrey has been through similar candidates forums and knows how the politicians operate. His primary goal in this forum is to keep the candidates’ answers specific and ensure they are on point when responding to questions, he said.

“The thing that’s important to me is that they stay on track,” Humphrey said. “Sometimes they get a question that they don’t care to answer or they haven’t really given a lot of thought to so they fall back to campaign rhetoric.”

For the last few years, former mayor and Daily Pilot columnist Peter Buffa moderated the debate. Buffa had a more hands-off style than Humphrey aspires to have, letting the candidates digress as long as they adhered to the time limits.

“You really have only one role, and that’s to maintain order. The clock is the most important part of the debate,” Buffa said.

Humphrey plans on prodding the candidates more and asking them plenty of follow-up questions.

“I would like to see a specific answer. Part of what you need to do is, when they finish their answer, ask them to be specific,” Humphrey said.

Some of the issues Humphrey sees playing an important role in the debate are the city’s budgetary concerns, growth and development and Banning Ranch. But he’s not going to be designing the questions: The public will write questions on note cards they will submit.

So what was the biggest mistake Buffa made as a rookie moderator at his first debate?

“My biggest mistake was saying yes,” he said.

Buffa said that he will not miss being the moderator this year.

“My favorite candidates’ forums are those at which I’m not. If I don’t have to be there, it’s fabulous,” he said.

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at alan.blank@latimes.com.