Election season has arrived again, and before another round of candidate interviews begins, the Grants Pass Tribune wants to try something different. This time, we do not want all the questions coming from the News Desk. We want them coming from the kitchen tables, businesses, neighborhoods, workplaces and communities of Josephine County.
We want to know what you want to know.
Candidates spend months asking residents for their votes. They attend meetings, shake hands, place signs along roadsides, distribute campaign materials and explain why they believe they should be entrusted with public office. Before ballots are cast on November 3, voters deserve their opportunity to turn that conversation around and ask the candidates what matters to them.
That is exactly what the Tribune is inviting our readers to do.
Beginning Wednesday, August 19, readers can send the Grants Pass Tribune the questions they want presented to candidates in the upcoming general election. Tell us which candidate you want questioned, tell us what you want that candidate to answer and include your name with the submission. We will collect the questions through Friday, August 21, select the strongest and most relevant submissions and use them to build a series of candidate question and answer features beginning next week.
For Josephine County Commissioner Position 1, readers can submit questions for Colene Martin and John West. The Commissioner Position 2 contest gives residents an opportunity to question Chad Hansen and Mark Jones. In the race for Josephine County Treasurer, readers may submit questions for Dustin Calvo and Simon Hare, while the contest for Josephine County Sheriff provides an opportunity to put questions directly to Sheriff Dave Daniel and challenger Jonathan Knapp.
The invitation also extends to the Oregon House District 3 contest between Dwayne Yunker and Susan Fischer-Maki. Readers who have questions for candidates in other local races appearing on their November ballots are welcome to send those as well. Simply identify the candidate, the office and the question you would like the Tribune to present.
There are plenty of subjects worth asking about because the offices being decided affect everyday life far beyond election season. County finances, taxes, law enforcement, jail operations, rural patrol coverage, wildfire preparedness, homelessness, housing, economic development, roads, libraries, land use, government transparency and the management of public money are only a beginning. State legislative candidates can be questioned about education, health care, transportation, taxation, wildfire policy, housing, regulation, state spending and how they intend to represent this part of Oregon in Salem.
But those are our examples. The entire point of this project is that they do not have to be your questions.
Maybe there is an issue you have been waiting months to hear a candidate address. Perhaps something happened during a previous term in public office that you believe deserves an explanation. Maybe you want to know exactly how a candidate intends to accomplish a campaign promise, where the money would come from, what authority the office actually provides or what the candidate would do differently from the person currently holding the position.
Ask.
Questions do not need to sound as though they came from a political reporter. They do not need elaborate introductions or carefully constructed political language. They should simply be legitimate questions about the candidate, the office, the candidate’s record or the responsibilities that person will assume if elected.
The Tribune will apply the same process to participating candidates. Reader submissions will be reviewed for relevance, clarity and duplication, and substantially similar questions may be combined or edited for grammar without changing what residents are asking. Selected questions will then be provided to the appropriate candidates so they have an opportunity to respond in their own words.
That approach serves another important purpose. The questions will not belong exclusively to the newspaper, a political campaign or any particular side of a race. They will have originated with residents who live, work, raise families, operate businesses, pay taxes and vote here. Candidates will know that the subjects placed before them reflect questions members of the community actually wanted answered.
This is an experiment for the Grants Pass Tribune, and whether it works depends largely on our readers.
Community journalism should be more than publishing information and asking people to read it. There are moments when a newspaper can also provide a bridge between residents and the people seeking the authority to represent them. An election is one of those moments.
Instead of waiting until after Election Day to debate what candidates should have been asked, this is the opportunity to ask it now.
Send one question or send several. Question one candidate or candidates across several races. Ask about something affecting the entire county or an issue you believe has received too little attention. Challenge a candidate to explain a policy, defend a record, describe a solution or tell voters specifically what he or she intends to accomplish after taking office.
If enough readers participate, their questions will become the foundation of the Tribune’s upcoming candidate interviews. If submissions are limited, the News Desk will supplement them with questions of our own. We are hoping we will not have to do much of that.
We would rather hear from you.
All questions must be submitted by Friday, August 21, and should be emailed to john@grantspasstribune.com. Please include your name, the candidate you want to answer the question and the question itself. The Tribune plans to begin publishing the resulting candidate question and answer features at the beginning of next week.
The candidates have had plenty of opportunities to tell Josephine County why they want its votes.
Now Josephine County gets an opportunity to ask why they should receive them.