By Gloria Stravelli
RED BANK – Before the May 9 special election ushering in Red Bank’s new form of government, candidates for public office in the borough have signed on to participate in a forum organized by the League of Women Voters of Monmouth County (LWV).
The Candidates’ Virtual Forum for the Red Bank Borough Council and Mayoral Elections will be held Monday, April 3, beginning at 7 p.m.
All six council seats and the mayor’s office are up for grabs; 13 candidates are vying for council positions and two for mayor. Of those running for council, four are current council members and the rest are newcomers.
Marianne Kligman, LWV vice president for voter services, called the fact that all candidates have agreed to participate in the forum “encouraging,” since the league has had a difficult time the past few years garnering involvement. “It’s very upsetting because our democracy is at stake if we don’t know who we’re voting for,” she said. She encouraged Red Bank residents and all voters to seek out information about candidates in an election to “preserve our democracy,” noting the LWV forums give voters the opportunity to hear directly from those running.
“For some 60 years, the League of Women Voters has been doing debates,” Kligman said. “We’ve always done them in person and those were a lot of work. We secured the venue, we had people taking questions that night from people writing them on index cards. And we had to screen them and send them to the moderator.”
The virtual format of the forum was born – like much the past few years – out of necessity because of the pandemic. “During COVID we just couldn’t do the debates in public anymore,” she said.
But the league actually prefers the virtual format, Kligman said, because all that legwork can be completed before the forum, like vetting questions from the audience. Those who register for the event may submit questions ahead of time.
“Question screeners are key,” Kligman said.
“We send (the questions) out to people who vet them for civility first, also for meaningfulness,” she said. “This way we weed out all the irrelevant questions, redundancies and begin to understand what’s important to the voters.” “This format is in use nationwide,” she said. “We do it all over the country and each state trains the moderator at the state level and has its own manual.”
With such a large candidate pool, Kligman said the league can’t conduct Red Bank’s upcoming forum the same way it would an average forum that would have four or five candidates at most. “How do you run a forum for large numbers of candidates and set it up so it’s going to be meaningful, it’s going to be interesting and it’s going to be fair?”
A forum gives voters the chance to really listen to a candidate, Kligman said.
“In a close election, it probably will have an impact.”
She stressed that the league is and always has been nonpartisan. “Our objective is to get as many people to vote as possible and to educate people about voting and that’s always been our mantra for the last 103 years,” she said.
The countywide league resulted from the merger of three leagues last year: Southern Monmouth, Greater Red Bank and Western Monmouth.
The presidents of the three former leagues – Barbara Chaudhery of Greater Red Bank, Evelyn Murphy of Southern Monmouth and Sharon Steinhorn of Western Monmouth – serve as co-presidents of the new county league, which remains dedicated to the mission to “empower voters and defend democracy.”
“The democracy is only going to be safe if people participate in voting and elect people to office and that is where we come in, to try to encourage the vote, to register people to vote and to educate the voters through our forums and our voter programs, which gives them all types of voting information,” Murphy said.
Candidates for mayor are current Mayor Billy Portman, running with the Red Bank’s Ready slate, and Tim Hogan of Red Bank Together.
Red Bank’s Ready council candidates include current council member Kate L. Triggiano, David Cassidy, Kristina Bonatakis, Nancy Facey-Blackwood, Ben Forest and Laura Jannone.
Red Bank Together candidates are current council president Michael K. Ballard, council members John L. Jackson and Jacqueline Sturdivant, Erin K. Fleming, Linda Hill and Sean Murphy.
Suzanne Viscomi is running independently under Dedicated to Representing Red Bank.
The online forum for council candidates will take place from 7 to 8:15 p.m. and for mayoral candidates from 8:15 to 8:45 p.m. A trained league moderator who does not reside in the town where the election is taking place will preside. The only people on the screen will be the candidates, the moderator and a timekeeper. Each candidate will present an opening statement but, due to time constraints, only the two mayoral candidates will be allowed closing statements, otherwise the process would be “unwieldy” with so many candidates.
The forum can be accessed via Zoom which accommodates a live audience of 500; registration is required. The program will be recorded and available on the league website at lvw.org until the municipal election May 9.
Visit bit.ly/rbforum to register in advance. Questions for candidates can be submitted during the registration process or by email to lwvforum2023@gmail. com with Red Bank Council or Red Bank Mayor in the subject line.
The article originally appeared in the March 30 – April 5, 2023 print edition of The Two River Times.
