The League of Women Voters is set to hold a forum on Monday to give Aurora mayoral candidates Richard Irvin and John Laesch the chance to answer questions and discuss their platforms ahead of the April 1 consolidated election.
The mayoral candidate forum will be open to the public and held at 7 p.m. in downtown Aurora’s Santori Library, but because of limited seating, the forum will be “hybrid” and streamed to the Aurora Area League of Women Voters’ website as well as its Facebook page, according to a news release from the organization.
Irvin has been the mayor of Aurora since 2017, while Laesch has been one of the city’s two aldermen at-large since 2023.
In the forum format, a moderator asks a question, then each candidate gets a chance to give their answer before the moderator asks the next question. Candidates cannot directly respond to each other’s answers like they would in a debate, and the audience is not allowed to applaud, cheer or boo for certain candidates.
The group held a similar forum for Aurora mayoral candidates before the Feb. 25 primary election, which narrowed the pool from six candidates to two. Irvin was the only mayoral candidate to not attend that forum.
At the time, Irvin said that he was unable to attend due to a scheduling conflict and that he asked the date be moved so he could participate, but he said the League of Women Voters was unable to change it.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com
