Dear Community-
We’re reaching out in hopes you’ll join us for a citizen-led candidate forum on Thursday, October 13th at 6:30PM at the Coaster Theatre. There, we’ll better get to know candidates running for city council/mayor and explore the issues that affect us all.
This event will be put on by Vote Smart Cannon Beach, an ad hoc committee of concerned citizens. It will be non-partisan.
To be clear: our goal is not to push any particular issue, agenda or candidate, nor to comment on any individual candidate’s position—simply to better and more deeply inform the full spectrum of Cannon Beach voters.
This won’t be our first time hosting such a forum—we first convened during the 2016 election. We’re proud of our thorough and clear production of that event.
This year, with eight combined candidates running for council and mayor, order, efficiency and clarity will be paramount to the forum’s success–both in terms of covering a wide range of topics and allowing each candidate fair and equal opportunities to share.
Our intent–and we’re already hard at work–is to develop a set of questions drafted by a committee of informed and engaged citizens from disparate viewpoints, professional backgrounds, economic and social interests. The Vote Smart committee include members of the hospitality industry, artists, business owners, employees, homeowners, renters, entrepreneurs, environmentalists and more.
We aspire to build, as the saying goes, a “team of rivals”—one capable of distilling the various viewpoints of our citizens and encompassing the myriad challenges of our city politics.
We will also solicit topics of discussion and questions for the candidates from all residents of Cannon Beach. If you have a question for the candidates share it with a member of the committee or email it to us at: votesmartcannonbeach@gmail.com.
We hope–in order to keep eyes from glazing over–to conclude the event in the neighborhood of 90 minutes.
Questions asked of the candidates will be broad and wide-ranging–launch-pads from which to examine how candidates see tentpole issues facing Cannon Beach.
But, at the core, as much as we want to explore *what* the candidates think, it’s our goal to better understand *how* they think. The challenges of tomorrow may not be perceptible to us today. Like the pandemic, challenges may surprise us.
Finally, and although you hear it ad nauseum, we believe this election truly is important. A voting majority of Cannon Beach’s council (including the mayorship) is on the ballot. And with so many candidates, councilors have the potential to be elected with as little as something like 17% of the plurality.
So, with all this in mind, we hope you’ll join us in getting to better know the vision of those seeking to serve Cannon Beach in a fair, open, and unbiased way on Thursday, October 13th, beginning at 6:30PM at the Coaster Theatre.
If you have any questions about the workings of the forum, or would like to submit a query to the candidates, please email votesmartcannonbeach@gmail.com.
Thank you,
Vote Smart Cannon Beach
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