Candidates’ Forum Slated for Monday

East Ridge News Online will sponsor a forum for City Council candidates at City Hall.

The forum is slated for Monday, October 17 at 7 p.m. in the Council Chambers at City Hall on Tombras Avenue. The public is invited and encouraged to attend. There will be no charge for admission, but seating is limited to the first 150 people.

Dr. Rick Wilson, professor of Political Science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, will moderate the event.

The forum will be videoed by Bill Shipley of Bill Shipley Photography, and posted on East Ridge News Online for those who are unable to attend the meeting.

Seven people have qualified to be on the council ballot. Those seven are: Jim Bethune, Matthew DeGlopper, Esther Helton, Doris Rogers, Gregg Shipley, Robert Stahl and Brian Williams.

East Ridge News Online has firm commitments from all seven candidates to participate in the forum.

Unlike past forums, questions will not be taken from those in attendance. Questions were submitted by readers of East Ridge News Online. Those questions were then forwarded to a committee _ Debbie Colburn, Kenny Ludlow, Sandy Smith and John Tilley _ for review. Each committee member assigned a numeric value to the questions (1 being a less desirable question and 5 being a most desirable question). The questions submitted with the highest value will be asked first.

Each candidate will be given the opportunity to make a two-minute opening and closing statement. In the interests of time, each candidate will be allowed two minutes to answer questions posed to them. The event is anticipated to end by 9:30 p.m.

The Municipal Election is Nov. 8, and early voting begins on October 19.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.