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Floyd’s in, Ficker’s still out of affording housing debate

Friday, April 21, 2006

Republican Charles R. ‘‘Chuck” Floyd will join a panel of Democratic Montgomery county executive candidates at an affordable housing conference next month, but the sole independent candidate will not appear alongside them.

Floyd, Isiah ‘‘Ike” Leggett and Steven A. Silverman will discuss solutions to the county’s affordable housing crisis on May 3 during Affordable Housing Conference’s annual summit. AHC has come under fire for excluding Floyd or Independent Robin Ficker from the discussion with the Democrats.

‘‘We were trying to figure a way to make peace and we cannot possibly fit two more people into that slot because our entire agenda would have to be changed,” said Barbara Goldberg Goldman, AHC’s co-chairwoman.

Ficker and Floyd were initially excluded from the forum because they did not respond to an invitation by the AHC’s deadline, Goldman said. Last week, a second forum was added for them.

This week’s change revolves around recognized political parties.

‘‘We were under the impression that if somebody filed as an independent then that was a party, but we found out that’s not the case,” Goldman said. ‘‘We’re not going to open the forum up to someone who may not even be on the ballot.”

Floyd was notified of the change late Wednesday, but Ficker did not learn about the change until The Gazette called him late Thursday.

‘‘I think this organization that has a tax exemption is acting illegally and in violation of its tax exemption, and now they are acting spitefully,” Ficker said. ‘‘I’m going to attend the early forum, and we’ll see what happens.”

As an independent, Ficker must collect about 5,100 verifiable signatures by July 3 in order to be included on the November ballot.

‘‘I think this will be good to hear both sides of the debate,” Floyd said Thursday. ‘‘Ficker resigned himself from the Republican Party and he has not yet collected all of the necessary signatures. I see nothing wrong with him being excluded under the circumstances because he is not an official candidate.”

With Wednesday’s decision, Goldman said Ficker is the only candidate slated for the second forum, but any unaffiliated candidate is welcome to join him.