During Chol HaMoed Succot the challenging candidate for mayor of Beit Shemesh, Israel, publicized an "open succah - succat shalom - public forum".  I attended with my wife to get some measure of the candidate.

The venue was a large kosher succah in his front yard.  A number of community (non-charedi) rabbanim were seated at a head table, and people were being invited to share statements or questions, and rabbonim to share divrei Torah.  The audience was primarily dati, mixed men and women (though they arranged themselves into separate seating) with a couple of charedi guys.

After a short time (from when I arrived, late in the event) it started raining hard, and Mr. Cohen invited everyone into his home.  As not so many people came in, I had an opportunity to speak directly with Mr. Cohen for about 15 minutes.  We spoke in Hebrew and then in fluent English.

Eli Cohen mentioned his background, including running the Jewish Agency office in Uruguay, and his current job as assistant director for the Israeli National Water Company (Mekorot).  Being he was speaking to an obvious Chabadnik, he did the political thing and related his interaction with Chabad, including being by the Rebbe for Simchas Torah in 1987, significant interaction with the Chabad shaliach in Uruguay as well as the Chabad chief rabbi of Russia in Moscow.

He emphasized fairness in allocating city resources and having professionally managed and functional city services.  Example, he said the city is currently short 100 school classrooms, but the city planning office has not scheduled building of additional classrooms and only reacts when groups bring pressure.

Question: Why are you running for mayor?

Answer: I have 3 children that I would hope would choose to live in Beit Shemesh.  But with the issues of city cleanliness and dysfunctional city services, why would they choose Beit Shemesh?  Further, I currently have a greater salary at my current job - so I'm only doing this to make Beit Shemesh a great place to live for all it's residents.

Question: What do you plan to do about the large numbers of teenagers on the streets, particularly in Ramat Beit Shemesh Alef?

Answer: The city has resources it can allocate, as well as programs it can offer through the community centers (Matnasim).  And it can work together with the many religious and other organizations to make a difference.  Yet currently the city does nothing in this area. 

Question: What is with this city and planning?  (Meaning, why do they do it so poorly?)

Answer: The new Ramat Beit Shemesh Gimmel being built is planned with no retail space, no synagogues, no mikvaot, no parks, and in the first phase no schools.  The building process is being completely run by business.  What's going to happen when families move there and have no local services in their neighborhoods?  Why would they accept that and not move to Beitar Illit or Modiin Illit (if religious) or Modiin (if not)?

Further, why are synagogues being forced to build on top of gan yeladim's?  There are plots available, yet organizations are being forced to "do something for the city" rather than doing something for the residents, to get a place.