Amarillo League of Women Voters holds forums for city, school candidates

The Amarillo League of Women Voters (LWV) held its second of two candidate forums Thursday at Amarillo College featuring candidates for the Amarillo Independent School District board, Amarillo College Board of Regents, city council and mayoral races. There was also a candidate for the Highland Park school board.

Tuesday night, LWV held a forum at the Cole Community Center featuring candidates for the Canyon Independent School Board.

Sonya Letson, president of the Amarillo League of Women Voters, spoke about the importance of having these forums to inform the voters of the city about their candidates.

“We have had these types of forums for 73 years; we started here in 1950,” Letson said. “We provide these forums so that the voters get to meet the candidates and be able to see them answer questions about issues in their own voice.”

Letson said she was very pleased with the turnout of LWV's two candidate forums, with standing room only at both events. In the interest of time, Amarillo City Council place candidates were combined into two groups answering the same questions.

LWV is nonpartisan and does not endorse any candidates, unlike some other groups holding candidate forums.  With more than 150 members ages 16 and older, including men, LWV is comprised of all volunteers with no paid staff.

“The most important thing that we do is create a voters guide to make sure that voters are informed about the candidates in these races, so they can make an informed decision,” Letson said. "All of our information for voters is available online at voters 411 as well.”

She emphasized that while phones are not allowed to be used in the voting booth, one can take a voters’ guide to look at while casting a vote.

James Schulte, a member of the Amarillo community who attended Thursday night’s forum, spoke about the value of the forum to him as a voter. During the forum, Schulte could be seen taking notes in the voters’ guide as each candidate spoke.

“I think this was a well-organized forum that worked to keep us informed, while also respecting our time by being done within two hours,” Schulte said. “While the questions were limited, these were questions asked that are of crucial interest to the residents of the city. Until you see these candidates and how they come across in person, they are just basically yard signs.”

Schulte said that his process on whether to support a candidate has a lot to do with his perceived capability of the person and their background of what they have done previously. He also said that he takes notice of a candidate’s passion for the job.

Asked whether there were questions that were not asked that were important to him, Schulte said he really would like to know what candidates thought about the Amarillo Civic Center, which has been a highly publicized issue in the city. Schulte also said that he was somewhat intrigued by some ideas about using single-member districts and at-large mixed in, to better represent the city.

In-person early voting for the May 6 election begins April 24 and runs through May 2.

For more information on the Amarillo League of Women Voters, go to https://www.lwv.org/local-leagues/lwv-amarillo and for their online voters' guide, go to https://www.lwv.org/elections/vote411 .

For more information on elections for Randall County voters, go to https://www.randallcounty.gov/166/Election-Administration

For more information on Potter County voters, go to https://www.pottercountytexasvotes.gov/ .

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Amarillo League of Women Voters hosts candidate forums