In-person voting for Joplin City Council elections takes place in about five weeks on April 5, and candidates are busy getting their message out to prospective voters. That includes first-time candidate Josh Detar who said in a recent interview that the city needs to make concrete plans for the future of Memorial Hall.

Detar, a fourth-generation Joplinite who currently serves on the Memorial Hall committee, is well aware of the potential for a rehabilitated site. “Memorial Hall is vital for many different reasons. The main one is to bring in these quality-of-life amenities. We need to have Memorial Hall because it’s just not. I think a lot of people get it confused with hey, it’s just a concert venue, it’s just there to compliment the Cornell Complex, and that’s not it at all. It’s a multi-purpose, multi-use facility.”

Detar joins newcomers Kate Spencer, John Buck, Brian Evans, and incumbent city council member Doug Lawson running for one of the three, four-year general council seats. Absentee voting opened last Friday, and in-person voting places Tuesday, April 5. KRPS will have the first of its series of candidate interviews covering the Joplin city council elections tomorrow on Morning Edition.