ALAMOSA– With COVID-19 restrictions on crowd sizes still in place and the lack of a large enough venue to allow a large in-person attendance, the Valley Courier is partnering with KSPK radio to sponsor a live forum for Alamosa County candidates.

The forum will be held Monday, Oct. 5 beginning at 7 p.m. live from the Comfort Inn of Alamosa. No in-person attendance will be allowed other than the candidates, radio personnel and moderator Keith R. Cerny, publisher of the Valley Courier.

Voters may tune into KSPK FM at 102.3, 100.3, 104.1FM, or listen to live streaming on KSPK.com. KSPK may also be listened to on any smart cellular phone on the Tune-In application.

Questions for the commissioner and clerk candidates should be emailed by noon Monday to: [email protected].

Commissioner candidates will be heard from first, followed by clerk candidates. All four commissioner hopefuls for two open positions and the two clerk candidates have agreed to attend.

“We have spent the past several weeks trying to find a venue large enough to host what would be expected to be a crowd of a 100 or more voters,” Cerny said. “We didn’t want to be in a position where we would have to turn voters away due to attendance restrictions.

“We even considered outdoor venues such as the athletic stadiums at Adams State and Alamosa High School. Both ASU restrictions and the darkness and weather factors didn’t make that feasible at those outdoor venues.”

Based on the fact that ballots are scheduled to be emailed on Oct. 9 made it necessary to schedule a forum prior to that date, Cerny said.

Social distancing will be practiced by candidates, staff and the moderator for the forum and masks will be optional due to the need to be able to speak freely.

Commissioner candidates scheduled to participate are Lori Laske (R) and Trudi Kretsinger (D) for District 1, and Vern Heersink (R) and Jan Vigil (D) for District 3. Clerk candidates are Jaclyn (Gabbel) Hurst (R) and Nicole Jaramillo (D).