Candidate Forum, Thurs Night -- Last Big Event of Election Season

Above: The moderator panel from the 2019 Franklin in Focus candidate event (Monique Doyle Maria Lucier, Steve Sherlock). Thursday evening's event is expected to follow a similar format.

In the works for several weeks, an additional candidate’s event has been organized for Thursday evening, at the Senior Center.

According to the team organizing the event, Due to time constraints, only candidates in competitive races were invited to participate: Town Clerk (2 candidates for 1 seat), Planning Board (4 candidates for 2 seats), Town Council (12 candidates for 9 seats), and School Committee (12 candidates for 7 seats).

The format will ensure that each candidate gets to speak on each of the questions asked.

• A lottery will determine the order of candidate response by role

• The first candidate will get 2 minutes to answer the question

• Each other candidate will get 1 minute to add to or differentiate from the prior answer(s)

o Note: given the number of candidates overall, each candidate will not be guaranteed a chance to lead the response to a question. The order of response will be based upon a drawing as the candidates arrive for the evening.

o All candidates are asked to be considerate of the other candidates (and the audience) and keep within their time allotment. A timer will be used to track, signs will alert candidates of time running out.

The Town Clerk candidates are scheduled to begin, followed by Planning Board candidates, then Town Council candidates, and last but not least, the School Committee candidates.

The event will be held at the Franklin Senior Center. Franklin TV will broadcast the event live and the public is invited. [NOTE: AN UPDATE from Judith Pond Pfeffer..the candidates night tonight will be shown on Comcast 8 not 11 as the SC policy meeting is to be filmed on Comcast 11 - SC policy meeting starts at 6:30 and ends at 7:30 which is why SC is going on last - if residents only look at Comcast 11 they will miss the candidates night ]Masks are required. The session will also recorded for rebroadcast. Franklin Matters will share the audio output via podcast.

The questions asked of each will attempt to be specific to the topics appropriate for the role and will not be released in advance.

The audience can respectfully and quietly observe (recall this is being broadcast live) and should have time to follow up with individual candidates at the end of the evening.