Chamber to Host Political Forum Next Month

Now that the candidates are set for the May General Primary, the Toccoa-Stephens County Chamber of Commerce plans to host a political forum next month.

Sponsored by the Chamber, WNEG, and the Stephens County Farm Bureau, the forum takes place Thursday, April 19th at 6p at the Ritz Theatre in downtown Toccoa.

Executive Director Julie Paysen says they hope to have all of the candidates for regional and local offices attend.

“We have heard back from State Representative Dan Gasaway and his opponent Chris Irwin who will be attending the forum,” Paysen said. “We’ve also invited all of the candidates in the race for the two Stephens County Commission seats and for the one race that has opposition in the School Board. So, hopefully we will have good attendance from those candidates and we look forward to having challenging questions from voters so we can get some answers before voting begins.”

In Stephens County, three county commission seats are up for grabs, but only two are contested.

James Addison, Jim Ledford, Henry Moore, Melvin Barrett, and Bryan Dooley are all running for the Post 4 seat, currently held by Commissioner Stanley London, who chose not to run for re-election.

Incumbent Commissioner Dean Scarborough will be competing against John Smith for Post 5.

Commissioner Michelle Ivester is running unopposed.

In the Stephens County Board of Education race, the only contested race is for the District 3 Post 1 seat.

In that race, Board member David Fricks is being challenged by Joel Blackwell and Kay Reed.

Incumbent board members Jim Bellamy, Bill Wheeler and Rodney Moore Jr. are running unopposed.

Paysen said voters attending will be able to submit questions at the forum and ahead of time.

“We will have the opportunity for voters to write out questions for the candidates. They can either turn them in to the Chamber office ahead of time. Then, the evening of the event, before we start we will have an opportunity for them to write out questions as well.”

Paysen questions should be phrased in a way that every candidate can answer them.

Again, the political forum takes place Thursday, April 19th at the Ritz Theatre at 6p.  If you cannot attend in person, WNEG Radio will be airing the political forum live on the 19th.