Our candidate forum committee keeps choosing dramatic questions over useful ones

I volunteered to help a neighborhood association prepare questions for a local candidate forum. I imagined we would collect residents' concerns, combine duplicates, and choose questions that revealed how each candidate would govern. Instead, our planning call became a contest for the sentence most likely to produce a clip.

One committee member proposed asking whether a candidate would "admit" that a controversial decision had failed. Another wanted every candidate forced into a yes-or-no answer on a plan that has several moving parts. When I suggested asking what outcome they would measure after one year and what tradeoff they would accept, someone said that sounded like a management seminar.

I understand the desire for pressure. Candidates often answer the question they wish had been asked. A forum that accepts six minutes of biography and no commitments is not useful. But a loaded question can do the same thing in reverse: it makes the moderator the main character and gives the candidate an excuse to reject the premise.

My proposal is to use a common structure. Name the verified decision or condition in one sentence, ask for one specific action, then ask how success and cost would be reported. Give every candidate the same time and allow one short follow-up if the answer misses the action. Questions about character or rumor would be excluded unless the committee has reliable, relevant evidence and a clear public-interest reason.

The chair likes the structure but worries it will feel bloodless. She says attendance depends on energy, and the forum cannot resemble a questionnaire read aloud. She is not wrong. People want to see judgment under pressure, not only hear polished plans.

How would you design questions that are fair without being soft? What makes a follow-up expose evasion rather than simply reward the moderator for sounding aggressive?