The Franklin County Consortium for Good Government, a coalition of non-partisan organizations in Central Ohio, is again organizing "Meet the Candidates" Forums in Franklin County and nearby communities.

This annual series of non-partisan events was initiated in 1991 when Brookwood Presbyterian Church and the National Council of Jewish Women presented the first candidates’ forum.

At a "Meet the Candidates" Forum, members of the public can meet and question the candidates who are running for public offices.  The Consortium invites all candidates who are running in a contested race to at least one of the candidates’ forums.  We may also invite proponents and opponents of issues to the forums depending on decisions by the governing board of the Consortium.

This year the Consortium will hold "Meet the Candidates" Forums  in widely separated geographical sites so that people in most electoral areas will be provided with a convenient place to view candidates. 

The Consortium works both to increase the public’s knowledge about candidates and issues, and to remind central Ohioans that if we wish to have a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” we must educate ourselves about all the candidates and then utilize our constitutional right to vote.

9/22/09: The Northland "Meet the Candidates" Forum event at the Haimerl Center has been rescheduled from Monday, October 5 to Thursday, October 8. See the 2009 Events page for details. more ...

9/4/09: The schedule of 2009 "Meet the Candidates" Forum events and locations is now online! more ...

7/20/09: The Consortium is seeking sponsors and supporters for its Fall 2009 series of "Meet the Candidates" Forum events.  See the "Sponsor Brochure" tab for details. more ...

More than 100 were in attendance at Broad Street Presbyterian Church on Monday, July 20, 2009 as Columbus City Auditor Hugh Dorrian, representing Citizens for Strong Neighborhoods and Good Jobs, and Bill Todd, representing Basics First, participated in a moderated discussion of Issue 1 in the August 4 Columbus special election. The moderator was Carol Luper, reporter for ABC6/Fox 28 News. The non-partisan event was sponsored and organized by the Franklin County Consortium for Good Government, the Columbus Community Coalition and the Central Ohio Pro chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

To listen to the "official," unedited recording of the event, please click on the link below. (76 minutes)

To download the recording in MP3 format, please right-click on this link. (27 MB)

 This audio work by the Franklin County Consortium for Good Government is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License