How long did the debate last?

Reporter: And now we’ll switch to highlights of last night’s debate between the city’s two candidates for mayor, Bella Porter and Dan Shmankie. The debate lasted more than an hour and was at times rather loud and contentious. The crowd interrupted the speakers several times showing their strong disagreement.
    Here’s what the candidates had to say on some of the issues. The first point that was hotly debated was in response to a question regarding the current homelessness problem in our city. Bella Porter, who has been active in city politics for over a decade and is currently serving as president of the city council, answered the question first.
B. Porter: I feel that Mr. Shmankie’s solution to the homeless problem is to sweep it under the rug. Mr. Shmankie believes that putting the homeless in jail will solve the problem. If we don’t see homeless people sleeping on our streets the problem doesn’t exist, right? Wrong!
    Mr. Shmankie appears to be more concerned with the comfort of tourists and visitors to our city than with actually helping some of our poorest and neediest citizens. A night in jail will not help a homeless person get his or her life back together. We need to provide real job training for these people in addition to affordable housing and medical services.
    Reporter: Dan Shmankie, a local businessman for over twenty years, then gave his response to the homeless question.
D. Shmankie: As usual, Councilwoman Porter’s solution to any problem is to throw money at it. The people we see on the streets are for the most part lazy drunks or drug addicts who don’t want to get a job and contribute to society. We hear stories every day from good hard-working citizens who are constantly harassed by panhandlers who come up to them and demand spare change. People have been attacked in front of stores and waiting in their cars at stop lights. Storeowners are losing business because dirty, scary-looking people are sitting with their shopping carts and sleeping bags in front of their stores. We need to feel safe on our streets again. These people don’t need programs. They need a kick in the pants!
    Reporter: The two candidates also had very different opinions concerning education.
    Shmankie: Once again Ms. Porter seems to believe that money will fix all problems. Our schools do not need more money. They need teachers who can get the job done. In the last five years we have seen student test scores plummet and I blame the teachers.
    Now hear me out. Some of my best friends are teachers. I certainly know of many hard-working and dedicated teachers who deserve our respect. But we need to think about education more like a business. If you are the president of a company that builds cars and half of these cars have serious problems, would you give your workers higher salaries and better benefits? Of course not, what we need to do is to make sore that our teachers receive raises if and only ff their students get higher test scores. And for those teachers who fail to get results, we need to replace them with teachers who can get the job done.
    Porter: Here’s a news flash for you Mr. Shmankie. Education is not a business. We are not cranking out on an assembly line; five per hour, one blue, one red, one green—each one exactly the same as the last. Education is a completely different process. We are preparing our young people to become productive citizens capable of making intelligent choices in life. Each student we serve has different needs. Our teachers are doing the best they can with overcrowded classrooms, limited resources, and little community support. Do you realize that most teachers cannot afford to live in this ’city because their salaries are so low? I hear stories every day about teachers who spend their own money on supplies such as chalk and paper because the school district does not have the funds to supply these basic needs. Our biggest problem is that we lose many of our finest teachers each year because of the poor working conditions and low salaries. Mr. Shmankie, we don’t need to fire more teachers. We need to raise salaries so that we can find the best and brightest people.
    Reporter: The next topic covered was the issue of affordable housing.
    Shmankie: Last time I checked we were living in a free country. In a free country, buyers and sellers have choices. If a buyer does not agree with the price, he or she can go to a different store. Even if the price is ridiculously high, the government does not step in and demand that the seller lower his or her price. Why, then, do people such as Ms. Porter insist that city government try to control how much landlords charge for rents? Rent control is downright un-American! If you don’t want to pay what the landlord wants to charge, you are free to look somewhere else.
    Porter: Mr. Shmankie, with all due respect, have you lost your mind? Are you saying that anyone who advocates rent control or supports other laws that protect people is a bad American? Give me a break! Are you aware that in the last three years 56 percent of the poor and elderly in this city have been forced to leave their apartments because they couldn’t afford to keep up with skyrocketing rent increases? In many cases, this has contributed to the very serious homeless problem we just discussed. We need rent control in this town to protect everybody’s right to affordable housing. What’s un-American about that, Mr. Shmankie?
    Reporter: You have been listening to highlights of last night’s mayoral debate. Be sure to ture in next week at this same time when the candidates will discuss other important issues. Thank you and good night.