Challengers having trouble getting answers to election questions.

It’s a Carmel election tradition.Candidates put their questions about city government in writing, and City Hall staffers are supposed to respond.

But, this year, some questions remain unanswered a month after they were submitted. City officials say they’re still working on the queries, but mayoral challenger Adam Moniz cries foul.

“We need to know as a city what is really going on in the Sue McCloud administration,” Moniz says.

Because of the sexual harassment lawsuit filed by on-leave Human Resources Manager Jane Miller, Moniz wants to know how the city funds settlements of claims against it. Court papers in the Miller case refer to four former Carmel employees who received settlements in cases similar to Miller’s totaling some $500,000, but Moniz could find no record of the payments. In a detailed series of questions, he asked how such payments are funded, how they’re accounted for in the budget, and how many such settlements had been paid in the past.

City staffer Molly Laughlin says the city hasn’t answered because it’s still researching some issues and would prefer to address all of the questions at once.

“That’s outrageous,” Moniz says. “It’s a technique to delay responding.”

Moniz has also asked about the worth and contents of Carmel’s purportedly large and valuable art collection, but in nearly a month he’s heard nothing.

Similarly, City Council candidate Jason Burnett hit a roadblock with at least one of his requests. He wanted to talk with city department heads to learn about their operations, but he says they were forbidden to speak with mayoral and City Council challengers. So he made a formal written request for meetings with the officials. To date, he’s sat down with the city’s public works director, library director and head planner, but he still hasn’t been able to meet with the city forester or public works superintendent.

City Manager Rich Guillen didn’t return calls for comment by deadline.

One request that was easy to fulfill and much in demand by the candidates: each other’s campaign finance forms.

Mayor Sue McCloud wanted to know if Burnett’s campaign fundraising has set a Carmel record. It has. Burnett has raised more than $31,000, roughly five times as much as the two mayoral candidates, both of whom have war chests of some $6,000 as of the early March reporting deadline.