The Stonewall Democratic Club is hosting a West Hollywood Candidate Forum & Special Endorsement Meeting via ZOOM on Sunday, August 9, 2020, from 2pm-4pm. All are welcome to tune in. Following the event, members will then hold an endorsement vote, which will be announced at the end of the meeting.
The candidates joining the forum will include West Hollywood Mayor Pro-Tempore John Heilman, who is up for re-election, John Erickson, Noemi Torres, and Sepi Shyne.
“Those are the candidates who requested our endorsement,” Jane Wishone, Political Vice President of the Stonewall Democratic Club, told WEHO TIMES. “We have a bylaws provision and I have been publicizing this literally for the last year. There is a form in our website. Some of these candidates filled out that form last November. Some of them filled it out in June. In order to be considered for endorsement by the Stonewall Democratic Club, the candidate and/or their committee and/or one of their volunteers must complete that form so that we have correct contact information. The best way to reach a campaign is to have the campaign complete something so that we know we’re getting to the right people in the campaign.”
Wishone said she hopes each candidate will seize the opportunity to show what they believe in, what their plans are, what their policy aspirations are, and what they’ve done in the past to show voters what they’re capable of doing.
“We had each of the candidates complete a questionnaire that basically covers most of the issues that people are concerned about,” she said. “Anything from LGBTQ rights, to Black Lives Matter, to rent control, to pretty much the full list of things that progressives and Democrats care about. Some of the followup questions will be based on their answers. Every candidate gets the same question, so there are no gotcha questions here. This is all going to be about issues and policy and plans.”
Members of the community are welcome to send questions prior to the forum, which can be submitted during registration. The questions will be curated for the moderator. Each question will be answered by the candidate. There will be a rotation in the order, so that nobody gets the advantage or disadvantage of going first or last for all the questions.
The forum will be moderated by Alex Mohajer, a Stonewall steering committee member. Mahajeer is part of the public relations team.
“This is a forum, not a debate,” Wishone added. “We are hoping to show each candidate in their best light and give them a platform to make their case to the voters. We hope to have lots of West Hollywood residents tune in for this. We’ll have it on our YouTube channel, so they can watch it later if they’d like to get a sense of each candidate.”
The forum will be approximately an hour-and-a-half long. At the end of the forum, members of the Stonewall Democratic Club will have the opportunity to vote for which candidate gets the endorsement. You have to be a member for 56 days in order to vote on the endorsement.
The Zoom meeting registration is as follows:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZApduCvqjstE9xfC7ZMEUudDMC9wW6uvRxT
Conference details and a link to the ZOOM meeting will be emailed shortly after registration. A password may be required for the meeting, which will be sent as part of the meeting details. Credentialing begins at 1:30 PM.
