In this issue we are proud to present our recommendations for the Aug. 26 primary elections.
These endorsements are the product of the collective evaluation of every candidate by this newspaper's 10-member community editorial board, which is made up of seven members of the community and three members of the Capital Outlook staff.
The 11 board members are:
Yanela Gordon, director of internship and placement, School of Journalism and Graphic Communication; Florida A&M University;
Eddie Haugabrook, retired administrator, Tallahassee Memorial Hospital;
Eddie Jackson, retired vice president for university relations, FAMU;
Stephanie Lambert, Outlook associate editor;
Vera McIntyre, community activist and owner/CEO of Vera McIntyre & Associates;
Tommy Mitchell, retired director, Black Male College Explorers Program, FAMU;
Willie Roberts, retired mathematics professor, FAMU;
Chiquita Williams, community activist and state employee;
Roosevelt Wilson, Outlook publisher;
Van Wilson, Outlook business manager.
We believe including members of the community as the majority of our editorial board provides a much broader perspective and gives this newspaper's endorsements more credibility than they would have if they were done by the Outlook staff only.
But that is not to say this community dominated editorial board made the endorsement task any less difficult.
There were many well-qualified candidates in virtually every race, and that made narrowing the choice to just one extremely difficult and sometimes agonizing.
The best example of this was choosing between Alan Williams and Sean Shaw for the District 8 House seat. That was agonizingly close and the board wrestled with it over two nights. Shaw won the endorsement by one vote after a co-endorsement was off the table.
Making the job even tougher was the knowledge that many — but not all, of course — of our readers rely on us to vet the candidates and they trust us enough to vote for most, sometimes all, the candidates we endorse.
For that reason, board members recuse themselves from participating in the endorsenent process in any race in which the board member had contributed to a candidate or aided a candidate in any other way.
