The campaign to elect four candidates from among 17 running for the Austin Board of Education begins in earnest today – the first day candidates will gather before the public.

Monday, October 11, 1999

The campaign to elect four candidates from among 17 running for the Austin Board of Education begins in earnest today – the first day candidates will gather before the public.

At 7 p.m., 15 of the 17 candidates will be on hand in Banfield Elementary for a forum sponsored by the Banfield’s Parent Teacher Council (PTC).

Each candidate will be given four minutes to introduce themselves and talk about their platform.

"The objective," said Joyce Bartels, president of Banfield’s PTC, "is we want to give parents a chance to be informed and to get to know the candidates."

The Banfield forum is the first in a series of public events preceding the Nov. 2 school board election.

On Tuesday, the Southgate Elementary PTC will host a candidate forum beginning at 7:30 p.m. at the school. Like the Banfield forum, each candidate will give a four-minute presentation. Afterwards, candidates will appear at a question-and-answer table.

On Oct. 18, from 7-9 p.m., the League of Women Voters is sponsoring a televised forum on KSMQ-TV.

Finally on Oct. 27, the candidates will gather in the Ellis Middle School auditorium for a final forum from 7-10 p.m.

The forum was organized by a group of a dozen or so citizens led by Austin businessmen Burt Plehal and Knowles Dougherty.

"It’s an ad hoc group for the occasion," said Dougherty.

The group hasn’t finalized the format for the forum, but Dougherty said it will be one acceptable to League of Women Voters.

"It’s tricky," he said, "because there are so many people and we want to give everybody a chance to say something."

The group has come up with a list of questions that it will be mailing to the candidates prior to the forum.

A sample question offered by Dougherty was: "What do you believe was the cause of the budget shortfall in the middle of the last school year, and what would you do to keep it from happening again?"