McNerney, Andal to face off in two CA-11 candidate forums next month

Voters in CA-11 will be able to hear incumbent Congressman Jerry McNerney and GOP challenger Dean Andal talk about the issues facing the district during two upcoming candidate forums.

The first forum will be shot on videotape sometime between Oct. 1-3 at Contra Costa Television studios and will be broadcast repeatedly on local cable Channel 27. The forum taping, which is not open to the public, is being sponsored by the League of Women Voters of the Diablo Valley and the Contra Costa Times, which will also put the forum up on its Web site.

The second event will be held Oct. 11 at 7 p.m. at the Monte Vista Middle School in the city of Tracy. The second forum is being sponsored by the Tracy Press and will be open to the public.

The events will mark the first time the freshman Democrat from Pleasanton will go toe to toe with the conservative Republican from Stockton. 

To date the campaign has not generated a lot of heat or light across the sprawling district. So far, McNerney has raised the most money in the race and has won over national political pundits who have moved the race from the "toss up" category to "leans Democratic."

Andal, a former state lawmaker and member of the state Board of Equalization, has struggled to free himself from an on-going ethics scandal involving his connections to a Sacramento-area builder and the development of a satellite campus for Delta College near the community of Mountain House.

The developer, who Andal serves as a consultant, was the recipient of vital closed-session college Board of Trustees information that served to keep his company in charge of the multimillion-dollar publicly-financed project.  

Through a spokesman Andal has denied any wrongdoing.