City Candidates Take Center Stage At Public Forum

A crowd of more than 130 potential voters eager to get a closer look at Glenwood City Council and mayoral candidates before the Nov. 3 city elections asked questions and participated in a straw poll Thursday in a candidate forum held at Glenwood Community High School.

The event, which was spearheaded by Tim Becker, saw the seven city council candidates – Dan McComb, Ryan Roenfeld, Joe Sainato, Jeremy Wade Rodman, Todd Haggstrom, Laura Kuhl and Craig Florian – take the stage to introduce themselves to the audience and then take questions.

The three mayoral candidates – Darcey Butts, Jessie Lundvall and Brian E. Tackett – then had their turn following the council forum. Each of the groups had 40 minutes to take questions provided to moderator Mark Ford through Facebook, a class of Glenwood government students and the audience.
Becker said he thought the event was an overwhelming success.

“I think it went fantastic,” Becker said. “It took a large group of volunteers to pull it off in really short planning time and it worked out well logistically.”
In conversations with attendees after the forum, Becker said he was most happy with the positive community and student response to the information presented.

“I had a number of people say it was going to be more difficult to make a decision (on who to vote for) now that they have so much more information about the candidates,” Becker said. “The second thing I thought was exciting was the students that participated in the straw poll are very excited about their future involvement in voting and being aware of local government and the local issues.”

During the questions and answers portion, the candidates were peppered with questions ranging from budget and fiscal responsibility to roads and infrastructure concerns to the cost of entry to the new public swimming pool and annexation possibilities for the city.

Ron Bales, who served on the city council for 34 years, used his question to thank the candidates for running and to offer some advice.
“Support whoever wins, don’t go in with an ax to grind and use common sense,” Bales suggested to a round of applause.

Following the forum,  Glenwood Community High School government class students in attendance conducted a straw poll for city council and mayor. Becker declined to give the results of the council poll, citing the low number of students who cast straw votes (just four) as his reason, but did say Lundvall won the mayoral straw poll.

“We weren’t sure there was enough student votes to publicize the (council) results,” Becker said. “We would have loved to have at least 50 students participate in the straw poll to have some information of value but the results of four people might have too much influence on what others might decide.”
The Glenwood city elections are Nov. 3 from 12 noon to 8 p.m. All voting will be conducted at the Glenwood American Legion Hall.

Voters who wish to cast an early ballot can do so this week at the Mills County Auditor’s Office, located on the main floor of the county courthouse.

The Opinion-Tribune

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