Mount Olive to host candidates Thursday
By Matthew Whittle
Published in News on October 16, 2012 1:46 PM
The Mount Olive Area Chamber of Commerce is hosting a special Business Before Breakfast to give members and non-members the opportunity meet this year's candidates for elected office.
Scheduled for 7:30 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 18, at the new Sleep Inn on N.C. 55, the breakfast is a regular tradition for the Chamber.
"Part of our mission is to provide programs to our members," said Chamber President Tyler Barwick. "And I think it's important to offer these kinds of programs to the community because folks need to be aware of their local elections.
"These elections will definitely affect the future of our community. These people make a lot of the decisions that directly affect us, and we all need to be informed before Election Day."
The breakfast will be free for Chamber members and $5 for non-members. Incidentally, Ms. Barwick said, it also will be one of the first big community events held in the hotel's new, larger meeting space.
"It's a good opportunity of us, the candidates and Sleep Inn," she said.
Invited are the candidates for state Senate Districts 5 and 7; state House Districts 4, 10 and 21; county commission Districts 2, 4 and 5, and at-large; and county school board District 2 and at-large.
The format will give each candidate three minutes to tell about themselves, their platform and what they plan to do once in office. Then the event will open up for one-on-one questions between candidates and those in attendance. It will not be, Ms. Barwick said, a traditional question-and-answer session.
"We want to give the people a chance to meet and talk to the candidates face to face," she said.