They squared off and answered the questions in a debate among candidates for the contested seats on Roanoke Rapids City Council tonight.

Held at the Roanoke Rapids Theatre, the first question thrown at the candidates in an event sponsored by the Roanoke Valley Chamber of Commerce and  the Daily Herald, was about the venue itself — what the candidates would have done differently.

“Early on we were required to sign letters of confidentiality,” Mayor D.N. Beale, whose name was drawn first, said. “That required us to talk in closed session.”

The mayor said, “We should have had more public input. Come December 1, I will have served 50 years (in the public). Never has any situation put scars and left scars as this theater project.”

Beale remains a strong supporter of the project and believes the venue’s new owner, Lafayette Gatling, will make it successful. “There are things with the theater that made me a better mayor, a better man,” he said.

Beale’s opponent, Emery Doughtie, said, “Looking back over last two to three years, the first thing I heard many people say was we should have most definitely have had a bond referendum.

“When people started talking about me becoming the mayor, many people were upset they didn’t know what was going on, the indebtedness.”

Doughtie said he does believe Gatling will be a success and credits some of the problems to the economy. “I’ve been very conservative with my own finances,” he said. “I’ve been conservative with other people’s money and have seen lower services to pay for something that might could be a great instrument to move our city forward.”

Incumbent Jon Baker said he’s had a couple of years to think about the question. “When the request for proposal came from the Northeast Partnership, we had to sign a confidentially agreement. That was the constraint we were operating under.”

Baker said the city was misled by the partnership and the state. “I would have liked to have seen more performance benchmarks,” he said. “That’s hindsight. We acted on the information we had at hand. We did the best job we could.”

Baker’s challenger Greg Lawson responded, “When elected officials represent the  taxpayers, we have to be mindful their decisions directly affect taxpayers. With the magnitude of this project it required openness. Openness was a necessity. We needed to tell the taxpayers what we were getting involved with.”

Lawson used the question to say should he win he would only serve one term and would not take a salary. “My heart is serving the community and the taxpayers not having to carry the baggage. This is a beautiful facility,” he said of the theater. “We have to embrace it, we have to support it, promote it to make it successful so we can move on.”

Incumbent Ed Deese said the theater was almost completed when he came onboard. “I knew nothing about what took place on the plans. There was nothing but optimism. The plans we hoped for didn’t turn out for a number of reasons. I would have asked if we were able to sustain the operation. It’s a beautiful facility. Mr Gatling purchased it. I think as a community we can do better planning for the future.”

Deese’s challenger, Suetta Scarbrough, said she wished more people would have come to the forum. “From what I know, the first thing I would have done is acknowledge and go by the feasibility study. They were informed for the theater to be successful all the outlying things being planned should be built before the theater. I certainly would have listened carefully to what they told us in the feasibility study. I would want citizen input, the citizens should have a say where their money is being spent. I certainly do want it to succeed.”