OrangePolitics will be holding our third-annual live online candidate forums for the upcoming elections for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education, the Carrboro Board of Aldermen, the Chapel Hill Town Council, and the Hillsborough Board of Commissioners, as well as an informal Conversation With the Mayors, which will include the candidates in all three of the county's uncontested mayoral races.
The forums will take place at http://orangepolitics.org/elections-2013/forums. Here's the schedule:
- Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education: Sunday, September 22, 7:00-9:00 pm
Moderator: UNC law professor Barbara Fedders, a specialist in juvenile delinquency and criminal law and an advocate for school discipline reform and a parent of a first-grader at Carrboro Elementary - Hillsborough Board of Commissioners: Sunday, September 29, 7:00-9:00 pm
Moderator: Vanessa Shortley, editor of the News of Orange - Carrboro Board of Aldermen: Sunday, October 6, 7:00-9:00 pm
Moderator: Kirk Ross, editor of the Carolina Mercury, former editor of the Carrboro Citizen, and a regular columnist for the Independent Weekly - Chapel Hill Town Council: Sunday, October 13, 7:00-9:00 pm
Moderator: Kirk Ross, editor of the Carolina Mercury, former editor of the Carrboro Citizen, and a regular columnist for the Independent Weekly - Conversation With the Mayors: Sunday, October 20, 7:00-9:00 pm
Moderator: Mark Chilton, the outgoing mayor of Carrboro
Each forum will consist of a real-time written conversation between the candidates and the moderator. Questions for the forums will be solicited from OrangePolitics readers both before and during the forums. As with our previous candidate forums, the moderator will have final say in question selection. The forums will take place online at orangepolitics.org, with one evening dedicated to each race covered.
Readers will be encouraged to observe each forum and to participate in a simultaneous, separate blog thread where they can discuss the forum and propose follow-up questions. OP editors will monitor this discussion in real time and feed readers' questions and follow-up topics to the moderator. Candidates will also be encouraged to ask each other questions and to comment on each others' responses.
Now is the time to start suggesting forum topics and questions. There are a number of ways to chime in:
- http://orangepolitics.org/2013/09/submit-your-questions-for-our-2013-candidate-forums
- The OP contact form (http://orangepolitics.org/contact)
- Twitter (http://twitter.com/orangepolitics)
- Facebook (http://facebook.com/orangepolitics)
- During each forum there will be an open thread for real-time comments and reactions.
