WHYY Sponsors Wilmington Voter Forums

WHYY will sponsor another round of voter forums designed to let Wilmington voters frame the issues that they want Mayoral candidates to address in an upcoming televised debate. This is NOT a candidate forum, but this is a place where voters can come together to provide input to the kind of questions they want Mayoral candidates to answer. They did this in 2010 in preparation for televised debates for DE Senate and representative races. Both Pandora and I went to the one held in the city that year and we were impressed with this process and what came out of it. If you have the chance to go, I highly recommend it.

From Newsworks.org:

Wilmington elects a new mayor in 2012. The September 11th democratic primary will determine the next mayor. WHYY will run a series of voter forums to get the candidates to address the issues you feel are important.

Three forums will be held. July 16, 18, and August 1 are the dates we’ve reserved for you.

Monday, July 16th, PAL Center, 3707 N. Market Street
Wednesday, July 18th, West End Neighborhood House, 710 North Lincoln Street
Wednesday, August 1st, East Side Charter School, 3000 North Claymont Street

All sessions begin at 5:30 p.m. with light refreshments followed by an orientation at 6 p.m. and discussion groups from 6:30 – 7:30 p.m.

The idea is simple. When you come to one of our forums you’ll get a chance to talk about the issues important to you. And those questions from you will form the questions we ask the candidates at an upcoming televised debate on WHYY.

We ask for you to register by sending an email to firstdelaware@whyy.org or by calling 302-657-8215 with name, phone number, email address, neighborhood and date of the forum.
Did we mention we’ll have food? Did we also mention we want your voice to be heard?

You also have the option of posting your questions up as a comment to the Newsworks article.

Seriously, Wilmingtonians, participate in this. It is NOT a candidate event (altho I see one candidate who has posted this up as one his Facebook events) — this is a moderated process, so they won’t let it get especially partisan — but if you have questions and concerns that are not being addressed by the candidates or the media covering them, this is the place to try to get them on the agenda. Make sure you register!