No. 5: Do you favor marriage equality – yes or no?

All candidates expressed support except for Worden, who called it “another litmus test, a label,” and said the issue is “unlikely to come back.”

Valeri said he thought the issue should have been put to the voters in a ballot question.

Thielman said he was “grateful the House did not put this on the ballot.”

O’Brien said that gay couples are “on a par” with heterosexual families.

Garballey called marriage equality the “civil rights issue of our time” and said he recalled shaking the hands of gay couples at Town Hall. “I’ve always supported minorities,” he said.

No. 6: Should the state help buy Belmont Uplands to be part of the Alewife Reservation?

All five answered in the affirmative, most citing the need to preserve open space. “You only get one shot,” Valeri said.

Worden called the proposed project “atrocious,” one that would worsen flooding in East Arlington.

O’Brien allowed that this may be hard to do during tough fiscal times.