Elks Candidate Forum Attended by Two District 55 House Candidates and Three State Candidates
Steve Held, Joel Krautter and Jerry O'Neil met voters after the debate between Brad Barker and Lisa Bennett, Mary Horman did not attend
By Denise Rivette
Last night’s Elks Candidate Forum was well attended by voters and candidates alike. In addition to local candidates, two candidates for eastern U.S. House Representative, Joel Krautter (R) and Steve Held (D), along with Jerry O’Neil, who is campaigning to become Supreme Court Justice, came to meet and greet the voters of Carbon County. The candidate forum for District 55 State Representative was preceded by information and a plea for voters to pass the EMS levy presented by Tom Kuntz. Brad Barker and Lisa Bennett participated in the forum answering questions from the evening’s host, Gordon Sirine. Barker stayed to mingle with the voters for the meet and greet portion of the evening, but Bennett left shortly after the question period ended. Notably absent from the evening was Mary Horman, the only District 55 candidate not in attendance. This marks the first time in the history of the Elks Candidate Forums that a candidate has refused to participate in the nonpartisan event that provides voters the opportunity to see the candidates together and watch them answer questions in person.
The uncut video of the evening is below:
Was Kim Gillan there?
It would have been a newsworthy inclusion in this piece to state why Mary Horman was not in attendance: two of the people promoting this event, effectively serving as significant faces of this event, were a couple the Horman's have had to procure a police protective order against due to their incessant harassment of the Hormans. It would have been like walking into a hornet's nest for Mary to have agreed to attend. Better to get trustworthy faces promoting an event than to ask candidates to join in a forum where they would immediately hold suspect, the promoters' motives.