A series of candidate forums kicking off in mid-February will give voters a close look at the contenders for Naperville City Council seats, as well as the four men seeking to be the next mayor.
The Rotary Club of Naperville will spotlight five to seven council candidates in each of the three forums scheduled consecutively to focus on that race. Those are set for 7 to 8:30 p.m. Feb. 15-17 at Judd Kendall VFW Post 3873, 908 W. Jackson Ave. Admission is free.
Featured the first evening will be council candidates Judy Brodhead, John Colletti, Kevin Coyne, Bill Eagan, Dick Furstenau, Paul Hinterlong and Stephen Purduski. On Feb. 16, the spotlight will be on Becky Anderson, Kevin Gallaher, John Krummen, Joe McElroy, Steve Peterson and Dave Wentz. The Feb. 17 forum will focus on Rebecca Boyd-Obarski, Wayne Floegel, Patty Gustin, Robert Hajek and Nancy Marinello.
The mayoral forum will take place during the club’s monthly luncheon meeting, slated for noon Feb. 26 at Meson Sabika, 1025 Aurora Ave. The cost for the lunch is $20, and reservations can be made at napervillerotary.clubexpress.com. The four mayoral candidates are Steve Chirico, James Haselhorst, Doug Krause and Marty Walker.
All of the forums are open to the public and will be live streamed online as well.
This is the first time all eight City Council seats will be put to the electorate simultaneously, the outcome of a scrapped plan that was to have council representation shift to geographically based districts this year. Voters overwhelming opted to remain with the current at-large system in the last consolidated election round in April 2013, but by then all of the council members’ terms already were on track to expire this spring.
John Gallagher, Rotary president, said the club is planning the forums to equip voters with as thorough an understanding as possible of the office seekers in the extraordinary election.
“As things stand now, there will be very few opportunities for the candidates to present their case to the public through a highly publicized candidate forumthat will be open to the public,” Gallagher said in a news release. “We would like to fill that voidas the campaign begins.”
Each forum will provide opportunities for the candidates to introduce themselves and outline their qualifications for the offices they’re seeking. Each also will address five questions that have been shared with all of the office hopefuls in advance of the forums.
Twitter @scarlman
