Forum Admin Blocks Officials While Promoting a “Fair” Candidate Q&A
Cottleville residents should be outraged. A so-called “neutral” election debate being organized on Facebook is anything but impartial. Candice Leslie – the administrator of the private Cottleville Forum Facebook group – is touting a candidates’ Q&A session as a fair, unbiased event, even as she actively censors and blocks current elected officials from participating in or even viewing her forum. In short, the very people this debate purports to include have been silenced by its organizer, turning the event into a sham.
Leslie has blocked several candidates – including current Mayor Bob Ronkoski and Alderwoman Emily Colombatto – from the Cottleville Forum group. That means these sitting officials (and likely many of their supporters) are barred from seeing posts or engaging with constituents there. Yet, incredibly, Leslie is hosting a debate between these blocked incumbents and their challengers, claiming it will be a neutral, “old-fashioned” Q&A for the benefit of voters. The hypocrisy is staggering.
In a public announcement post on the forum, Leslie painted the event in idealistic terms. She wrote that “in an effort to reduce political mudslinging,” the forum admins have decided to hold a “neutral, old fashioned Q&A for candidates running for Mayor and Alderwoman”. She assured readers it would be civil and fair – all “smiles, fair questions and handshakes” instead of anonymous mudslinging – and even directly invited the community, asking “Will you join us?”. Leslie also claimed that “invitations have been sent to the 4 candidates”, implying that both the incumbents and their challengers were welcome to participate.
But Leslie’s actions behind the scenes tell a very different story. In reality, the deck has been unmistakably stacked. Because Mayor Ronkoski and Alderwoman Colombatto are blocked from Leslie’s group, they had to be invited through back-channels – if at all. Leslie even had to ask a third party to deliver the invitation on her behalf, writing, “Please invite Mayor Ronkoski and Alderwoman Colombatto” in an email to an intermediary. It’s an absurd situation: Leslie publicly pretends to welcome all candidates, while privately ensuring the candidates she disfavors are kept at arm’s length.
Even more troubling is how Leslie is filtering the debate questions to her advantage. According to her own correspondence, “the questions will come from the people of the forum” – i.e. from the members of her Facebook group, which conveniently consists only of people she hasn’t blocked. Leslie explained that she and her team will “compile the questions and they will be asked anonymously to the candidates”. In other words, Leslie alone gets to decide which questions make the cut, and the candidates won’t even know which citizen is asking. By excluding voices she doesn’t like (including the current administration and its supporters) and cherry-picking questions from an echo chamber of her own making, Leslie is effectively rigging the Q&A. This is not an open forum; it’s a scripted performance where she controls the script.
Current officials in Cottleville see right through this charade. They know a set-up when they smell one. Alderwoman Emily Colombatto – whom Leslie barred from the forum – didn’t mince words about Leslie’s debate. In a message to a constituent, Colombatto reportedly called it “the latest stunt”, and pointed out that “since I am effectively banned or blocked from communicating with all entities involved, this is simply designed to make Bob and I look bad”. Being shut out of a community forum under the pretense of “neutrality” isn’t just personally insulting – it’s an affront to democratic principles. How can a debate be fair when one side isn’t even allowed in the room until the day of the event?
The outrage here isn’t about a single Facebook group’s internal drama – it’s about transparency and fairness in our local elections. Cottleville voters deserve better than a Potemkin debate orchestrated by a biased moderator who silences those she disagrees with. A truly neutral debate would invite questions from all residents, not just a filtered subset. It would allow every candidate equal access to the discussion leading up to the event, without fear of posts being deleted or users being exiled for political reasons. What Leslie is doing instead is hijacking the public discourse and misleading voters with a false pretense of fairness.
Cottleville, don’t be fooled. This upcoming “neutral” Q&A is neutral in name only – a stacked deck that insults the intelligence of our community. We should all be asking: What kind of fair debate censors the sitting Mayor and Alderwoman? The answer is simple: none that deserves our trust.
Call to Action: It’s time for Cottleville voters to stand up for real transparency and fair play. Do not silently accept this charade. Demand true open forums where no candidate or citizen is silenced. Insist that any public debate be hosted on genuinely neutral ground – moderated by someone without an axe to grind, and open to questions from the entire public, not just a gated Facebook clique. Our community’s future is too important to allow one biased administrator to control the narrative. Let Candice Leslie – and any would-be power brokers – know that Cottleville will not tolerate these underhanded tactics. We deserve a fair, democratic process, and nothing less.