In one hour and 17 minutes, five candidates for three places on the Sulphur Springs City Council presented opening and closing statements and answered submitted questions regarding their individual view of the past, present, and future of the city during a Thursday night, April 19, 2018, candidates forum sponsored by the Hopkins County Chamber of Commerce at the Sulphur Springs Middle School.
Place 1 candidates, challenger Erica Armstrong and incumbent Craig Johnson, along with Candidates Place 2 Sara Gibson and Jimmy Lucas and Place 3 incumbent Oscar Aguilar answered questions regarding budget, police and fire, future development for the city, and other subjects of city interest.
Absent from the forum were Place 1 candidate Justin Davidson and Place 3 candidate Norman Sanders. A letter from Sanders was read by forum moderator Chris Brown, Executive Director of the Ark-Tex Council of Governments and husband of Hopkins County Chamber of Commerce Director Lezley Brown. Sanders was not present but was with his wife, who had surgery Thursday. In the letter Sanders did not speak to any city issues but did state his reason for not attending. Davidson had withdrawn from the forum last week in a letter to KSST News stating that he had reservations regarding the process of approval for questions that would be asked during the forum. He said his campaign was not represented in the question choice.
Questions asked by Moderator Brown were drawn from a bowl. Brown then asked one question to the candidates in an individual race.
Below is the complete, unedited forum:
