A local candidate forum Friday,April12attheNemont Friendship Room was well attended. About 74 people, including 11 of the twelve invited candidates were there.
A panel of organizers prepared questions and moderators presented the same, specific questions pertaining to each of the candidate’s hopeful office.
For school board trustee candidates, questions like asking opinions on the 4 day school week and would they reverse it if it is not working.
Basic, background and qualifications for the job questions were asked of each candidate. Most other questionswereaboutwhatthe steps candidates plan to take, or how to improve the office, how they would fulfill duties, county budget improvement and more questions pertaining to what the candidate felt was the biggest obstacle facing the office in question.
Sheriff Clint Lowe was called out of the meeting due to an emergency after three of seven questions.At that point, his opponent Duane Anderson stated it probably wasn’t fair to Clint if he continued without the other candidate.
There were about seventy questions asked and answered. We found that most candidates were in agreement with their opposition on most points. The questions were not too meaty, and it seemed a fairly agreeable bunch. However, overall it was a good gathering and voters who took the time to attend, did get some feeling of how the candidates fielded questions and their ability to respond and clearly convey their opinions in public.
Due to time constraints only a very few questions came from the crowd but manystayedforafewminutes after the function to visit.
Someone asked us if we at least got a good quote, we really didn’t. Most of the candidates indicated that they filed because of interest in giving back and participating in the community. Garrett Lund summed things up, pointing out, as a community we need to develop better communications among ourselves and to show up and be heard.
It seemed that by attending the gathering, people who had their minds made up of who they would vote for, likely did not change their minds but the meeting may have swayed those undecided.
At the table of inquisition were candidates Micheline Lekvold (for school board), Cody Warren (for Clerk of Court), Garrett Lund (for school board), Duane Anderson (for sheriff), Dottie Berg (for Clerk of Court), Clint Lowe (incumbent for sheriff), TammiFladager(forcommissioner in district 3), Logan Olson (incumbent for school board), Ben Fosland (for District Court Judge), Troy Larson (for commissioner in district 3), and Gayle May (for school board). Upper, far right are the moderators, Floyd McMillan and Joan Bjarko, who did well keeping things on track.
Felix Gilbertson put the event together and deserves recognition for getting the community involved. -bb