By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Area voters, interested citizens, anyone who wants to know more about their local government are invited to a community forum Friday in St. Joseph.
The League of Women Voters of Northwest Missouri will host the forum at the Upper Story Room at the Rolling Hills Library on North Belt Highway, beginning at 5:30 Friday evening.
Sharon Kosek with the League says this is one in a planned series of community forums.
“Well, our hope as the League of Women Voters group, is for more people to be informed within our St. Joseph, Buchanan County, and surrounding area,” Kosek tells KFEQmmunity. “We want folks to know what’s going on. If they have questions, to ask those questions. We want people to be more in touch with their leaders.”
The forum Friday will feature St. Joseph state Rep. Bill Falkner, Buchanan County Presiding Commissioner Scott Nelson, and Buchanan County Sheriff Bill Puett.
Kosek says those with the League of Women Voters hopes that such forums stir more interest among citizens and motivate them to vote.
“And we certainly would like to have that percentage increase,” Kosek says referring to the low voter turnout percentages from recent elections. “And the more comfortable or familiar people are with issues or what’s going on, we think they’re more likely to vote and be inquisitive about what is happening.”
Kosek says questions will be taken from the audience.
“As well as I always bring a few questions of current events or things that are going on that people are probably interested in in order to get people into that arena or thinking, ‘Okay, I never thought about that. Maybe I should ask a question about that.’”
Kosek says such community forums can give citizens a better perspective on issues.
“You might hear a snippet of this and a snippet of that, but you don’t have the whole story,” Kosek says. “And it’s so important to listen to that entire story or more of the story than what you just heard from maybe your next door neighbor or somebody else that might be concerned or upset, because there’s always the other side to the story. There’s never just not one.”
The community forum will run from 5:30pm to 6:30pm. It will be held in the Upper Story Room of the Rolling Hills Library on the North Belt Highway. The League also will be registering people to vote.
You can follow Brent on X @GBrentKFEQ and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.