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This link will take you to KGCS’s YouTube page where the forum is available to watch

On Tuesday night, Joplin city council candidates gathered for a forum ahead of next Tuesday’s election. KRPS’s Fred Fletcher-Fierro has more.

Missouri Southern State Universities TV station KGCS held the one-hour forum hosted by General Manager Bobbie Portioff. The questions ranged from increasing the salaries of the city’s police and fire departments to homelessness to Question 1, and whether to pass a 30-million-dollar bond to redo Memorial Hall.

Candidate Jon Thomas Buck had this to say about the plan Tuesday night, “I am for the vision, and I am for what Memorial Hall stands for. I just don’t like this plan. For me, it’s a no right now because it doesn’t make any type of fiscal sense.”

However, Buck told me this in a candidate interview recorded earlier this month. “The bond issue is going to come help with that, and I believe that we do need to have that; we need to have Memorial Hall. We need to invest in that because you need to spend money to make money. That’s the number one rule of business. We have to do that.”

Buck is one of five candidates running to fill three general council seats. Josh DeTar, Kate Spencer, Brian Evan, and Doug Lawson are also running. Election day is April 5.