Political Forums Scheduled For Newport, Derby House Races

NEWPORT CITY - The Caledonian and Orleans-County Record and The Chronicle will host two political forums on the evening of Monday, Sept. 17 in the Goodrich Memorial Library featuring all the candidates in two House races in the Newport and Derby areas.

Both will be held in the second story assembly room of the historic library on Main Street.

This forums will be moderated by Vermont's Northland Journal Publisher Scott Wheeler of Derby.

The first forum is at 6 p.m. and features the three candidates running in the Orleans-2 House District, which represents Coventry, Irasburg, Newport City, Newport Town and part of Troy.

The candidates are incumbent Republican Michael Marcotte of Coventry, Republican Woodman Page of Newport City and Independent Kendall Lambert of Newport City.

The second forum follows at 7 p.m. and features the three candidates running in the Orleans-1 House District, which represents Brownington, Charleston, Derby, Holland and Morgan.

The candidates are Independent Frank Davis of Derby Line and Republican incumbents Lynn Batchelor of Derby Line and Brian Smith of Derby.

Each candidate will receive time to introduce themselves and make closing arguments. The moderator will ask each candidate the same questions from the two newspapers and then the moderator will pose questions from the audience or sent in advance.

Voters in these districts are invited to pose questions in advance by emailing Orleans County Record reporter Robin Smith at rsmith-caledonianrecord.com.

Voters are asked to keep their questions to one sentence. The deadline to email questions is Friday, Sept. 14.

People will have time to talk to the candidates after the forum concludes.

The library is handicapped accessible.

The two newspapers are also organizing forums for other races in this region, with details on those to be announced in the coming weeks.