Voters, candidates to meet at forum

The four candidates running for the two Union County Supervisor seats have their work cut out for them.

Regardless of how they answer during a candidate forum scheduled Thursday, for the June 4 primary election to be effective, the top two winning candidates need to each at least get 17.5% of the total votes cast to be declared a winner.

Creston News Advertiser, KSIB Radio and Creston Chamber of Commerce are sponsoring a forum of the four candidates. The forum will be held at 7 p.m., Thursday, May 9, at the Southwestern Community College Allied Health Building. Panther TV will livestream the event. Go to youtube.com and search for Panther TV-Creston High School.

Candidates are incumbents Dennis Brown and Rick Friday and contestants Tom Spencer and Bill Oetken. All are on the Republican ticket.

If the ideal voter results don’t happen to name two winners, the Union County Republican party must convene and determine the winners by their processes.

Whoever does not win in June can’t file again later this year as an unaffiliated candidate to be on the November ballot.

Union County Auditor Sandy Hysell said voters can request an absentee ballot through her office. Those ballots will be mailed beginning May 15. Ballots must be returned no later than June 4 to be counted.

At the forum, each candidate will make an opening statement. After the opening statements prepared questions will be asked to each candidate. No rebuttal will be allowed unless a specific candidate is named and then that candidate will have one minute to respond. The final segment of the forum will be a closing statement from each of the candidates.