By Joe Morey
News Editor
Once again, the Lac Courte Oreilles Today Facebook group page will host a Candidate's Forum on Thursday, June 3th for the six General Election candidates. The Forum will be published in its entirety in the printed Tribal Newspaper dated June 16 and in the Online Newsletter the week before election. The General Election will take place on Saturday, June 19 with voting at the Tribal Office and New Post Community Center.
The forum will begin at 7 pm sharp and run till 9 pm. There will be 8 questions. The structure and rules for candidates and group members is below.
All candidates are welcome to participate and can expect a professional and respectful forum and interaction with the voters. There will be 8 questions asked every 15 minutes allowing the forum to be concluded at 9:00 pm.
This candidate’s forum will be exclusive to the LCO Today page and the 2,200 members of this page, who best represent the actual citizenry of the LCO Tribe. As administrator, I only allow people who are members of this tribe or at least active participants in the community, such as long-time employees or spouses.
The forum structure will be as follows; Every 15 minutes a question will be asked by myself as moderator and the candidates will have 5 minutes to post one response in no particular-order. All questions will relate to tribal issues as-a-whole and no candidate will be asked a direct question. During the 5-minute period, members will not be allowed to post. Once the 5-minute period is over, members and candidates will be allowed to engage one another in a respectful way. Any members make a post or comment during that 5-minute period, it will be deleted. After a 10-minute engagement period another question will be asked as a separate post and the same procedure will follow until 8 questions have been asked. Members and candidates can continue posting on the previous questions for as long as they so wish during the time of the forum. After 9:00 pm, all commenting will be closed on those questions as to discourage any personal attacks on candidates when they are not online to respond.
There will be rules for the members in their participation. Members won’t be allowed to make any posts to the LCO Today page between the hours of 7:00 pm until 9:00 pm while the forum is taking place. Members will not be allowed to ask any questions deemed as personal attacks on a candidate or not related to the question. The goal is to keep this forum a respectable and informative session with our potential next council members. They should all be encouraged to participate and not discouraged in fear of unnecessary attacks and surprise “gotcha” questions. Candidates can be assured the 8 questions asked during the forum will concern current tribal issues as-a-whole.
Members who have a question they would like to see asked as part of the 8-question forum, please post your questions here or private message me with your question.
In closing, I want to extend this invitation to all candidates. All candidates will be treated fairly and respectfully in this debate and I will not allow any other members to be rude or distasteful with their comments or questions during the forum.
And one more thing. If you as members know of any candidates who aren’t members of this group, and they’d like to participate, add them to the group and they will be approved.