Want to test the mettle of a mayoral candidate? Put him in front of a room full of soggy Jews at 10 a.m. on a rainy Sunday. That's what happened to Stamford's contenders, Mike Pavia and David Martin, this past weekend when the Brotherhood of Temple Sinai invited the pair to participate in an informal breakfast debate.

First Pavia, a Republican, and then Martin, a Democrat, took part in what amounted to consecutive question and answer sessions. Fueled by free caffeine and slow-burning carbohydrates, the crowd, about 10 percent of which consisted of candidates for other city offices, pressed them for two hours on everything from school busing, corporate tax breaks and a proposed trolley system to one what passionate inquisitor called "the buzzsaw of local corruption."

"I've never had a question like that one," Pavia admitted in his follow-up to the corruption question, particularly when the questioner added, as an example, his suspicion that city employees were removing Pavia's campaign signs from his neighborhood.

Martin opened the door to all comers at the beginning of his part of the program by stating, "I grew up in Missouri, the Show-Me State. So, I'm known for asking a lot of questions."

Since the temple is located in North Stamford, many of the queries came from homeowners who have been affected by pesticides leaching out of the former Scofieldtown dump. To date, as many as 20 homes in that area have been found to have well water contaminated with carcinogens. The candidates were asked to explain how long they had known about problems with the dump and what each had done about it.

Pavia, who has served as Stamford's Environmental Health Commissioner, stressed that not enough had been known about the situation in the past to suggest appropriate action.

Martin pointed to his convincing the city to close the park built over the dump as soon as he was told about an EPA contamination report. "By the next day there was a padlock on the gate," he said.