Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that, whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them right.”

That quote from Thomas Jefferson is as applicable today as it was in the late 1700s.

Among the roles that a newspaper takes in a community, especially a community of our size, is to provide as much accurate information as possible to citizens. Along with entertaining, educating, and offering opinion, both yours and ours, providing information is an obligation that we embrace and take very seriously.

With that in mind, I would like to invite you to attend a political candidates forum that will be held on Thursday evening, July 19, at the Kirbo Center on the campus of Bainbridge College. The event will begin at 6:30 p.m., and the admission if free.

This event is co-sponsored by The Post-Searchlight and Flint Media, operator of Live 101.9 and Rockin’ 106.3 radio stations.

Locally, this year’s election is vitally important. Both the County Commission and the Board of Education are facing some challenges and it is our responsibility to choose who will fill two seats on each of those boards. This event presents a chance to hear, first-hand, how the candidates plan to face those challenges.

The format of the forum will be fairly straightforward. Candidates in each of the five contested general primary races in the county — Sheriff’s Office, Districts 3 and 5 of the Board of Commissioners, and Districts 1 and 3 of the Board of Education — will be on hand to answer prepared questions from a panel.

Additionally, each candidate will have the opportunity to explain to you why he or she should earn your vote.

The candidates for the Office of Coroner will not participate in this forum because that race will not be decided until the November general election, given one candidate is running as a Republican and the other as a Democrat.

A three-person panel, consisting of Matt Palmer, owner of Palmer Insurance Agency, Alesia Brinson, founder of the 1-on-1 Mentoring Program and a hair salon owner, and Justin Schuver, managing editor of The Post-Searchlight, will ask the questions, which will not be provided to the candidates in advance.

Our goal is to provide the most, and best, information possible to you in order to make the best decision on July 31 when you go to the polls. So, we want you to submit the questions that are asked of the candidates.

You have several avenues to submit these questions. You can email the questions to news@thepostsearchlight.com, call Live 101.9’s office at (229) 246-7776 or simply hand deliver the questions to either office.

I want thank Kevin Dowdy, owner of Live 101.9 and Rockin’ 106.3, for partnering with us on this important event. Kevin, like me, believes that a free-flowing of information is vitally important to an effective government.

Hope to see on July 19, please send in your questions for the candidate, and for more information call (229) 246-2827 or send me an email at jeff.findley@thepostsearchlight.com.

Jeff Findley is the publisher of The Post-Searchlight. You can email him at jeff.findley@thepostsearchlight.com.