Candidate forums set

Candidate forums are planned for July 14 and 17 by the new voter education group PAVE.
The group is made up of former members of the county’s League of Women Voters, which disbanded last summer. Several of that group wanted to continue to sponsor candidate forums, so they have formed the Pottawatomie Co. Advocates for Voter Education, or PAVE for short.
PAVE’s first official event was a candidate forum in March for the Shawnee municipal special election.
The forum set for July 14 will feature candidates for county office on the July 29 primary ballot. PAVE has invited the two Democratic candidates for county clerk, the four Democratic candidates for sheriff and the two Republican candidates for sheriff.
That forum will be held at Tecumseh City Hall in the council chambers beginning at 7 p.m. Michelle Briggs will serve as moderator.
On July 17 a forum at Shawnee City Hall will feature the two Republican candidates for the District  27 House of Representatives seat and the eight candidates for Shawnee mayor and commissioner posts. Ronnye Sharp will serve as moderator for that forum, which begins at 7 p.m. in the commission chambers.
PAVE will continue to use the League of Women Voters’ format, where written questions are submitted from the audience and screened for relevance and duplication.
ShawneeCTV will videotape both forums for playback on cable channel 99. They will probably be aired five to seven times a day up until the primary, according to CTV’s Daniel Shaughnessy.
Both forums are open to the public at no charge.