The Sammamish City Council unanimously approved the Issaquah/Sammamish Reporter to host and moderate a Sammamish Candidate Forum at City Hall on July 17 from 6-8 p.m.

The city is also going to record the meeting, but it will not be streamed live.

“In the event we have a technical error we are concerned about only being halfway through and unfair coverage,” Deputy City Manager Jessi Bon said.

It could take up to five days before the video is processed for the city’s YouTube account.

The city requested proposals to organize and moderate the candidate forum last week. The Reporter was the only group to respond.

The Reporter will only invite the nine City Council candidates facing a primary election in August. Positions 3, 5 and 7 are up for a primary.

The forum will be in a question-answer format.

Carrie Rodriguez, regional editor of the Issaquah/Sammamish Reporter, Bellevue Reporter and Mercer Island Reporter, will moderate the event.

Candidates will have 90 seconds at the beginning to introduce themselves and then Rodriguez will begin with the questions.

Candidates will have 1 minute to answer each question. The Reporter hopes to get through 11 questions by the end of the night, allowing for a 30-second wrap-up from each candidate before concluding the event.

The Reporter is interested in gathering questions from the community.

Please submit questions you would like us to ask the candidates to news@issaquahreporter.com or send them in a private message to the Issaquah/Sammamish Reporter Facebook page.

The Reporter will compile and sort these questions for the forum.

Additionally, there will be an opportunity for the audience to write down and submit their questions at the forum.

The Reporter will have staff on site keeping time to ensure each candidate only takes the allotted time per question. The moderator is prepared to cut off candidates who go over their time.

Council first discussed the candidate forum at the study session on June 13, where council was adamant that allowing a candidate forum was vital to the community and the election.

The council has also expressed its intent to allow another forum at City Hall for the general election.





