To promote voter awareness for local elections, ASUW provided students with an opportunity to meet candidates through a ‘meet and greet’ event on Oct. 17, 2022.
The event was more casual than traditional ‘meet and greets’ that candidates or the public had attended before.
Shelley Leonard, when commenting on the importance of attending and hosting more events like this said, “Actually facetime with people who go vote and they can ask, where it’s more personable and connected, questions that aren’t typical.”
Brett Glass, who is running for City Council, had this to say: “It’s good to be in person, unlike city council which is not conducted face to face right now but instead over Zoom with no video, and suddenly you are no longer a person. You’re just a disembodied voice.”
There were almost 50 candidates in attendance, including city, state, and federal electoral candidates. Among those was U.S. Representative candidate Harriet Hageman.
“It is important to meet people as their republican representation and form accountability.” said Hageman, who also focused on her goals if elected, one of which is to “take power out of D.C. and bring it back to the state.”
Some candidates used this opportunity to focus on the inclusion of underrepresented groups.
Allison Lunningham, a representative of the deaf community in Laramie said, “I plan to become a student and with that increases awareness and accessibility for deaf students through hiring more interpreters, ASL events, and making more comfortable and fun options in the Union.”
Sergio Maldonado, Sr., who is both Northern Arapaho and Mexican American, spoke on public education: “School is a lifetime experience, and we need to make sure teachers are respected. Money being pulled for education funds by the Legislature is not respectful.”
Klaus Halbsgaut is focused on working with and for the county, anywhere from working with UW students to farmers to Albany County Residents. Jackie Gonzalez, who first ran in 2018, was focused on energy resources for the main topic of their discussion.
Ben Haggerty put an emphasis on regional transit, saying, “UW, the City of Laramie, and the City of Cheyenne need to coordinate transportation for all.”
Another common theme of discussion amongst candidates was collaboration.
Thomas Martin, who has a background working with Laramie Interfaith stated, “Guiding the district to do the best they can, resolving problems, developing new concepts.”
Dan Bleak, when discussing the role of the school board, said, “We need to find a better way to reward teachers not only to keep them in state but also to help teachers who have low performance improve.”
With an overwhelming turnout of candidates where a series of topics and issues were discussed, UW students and staff can look forward to seeing this event again once midterm elections return.
