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Candidates Answer Array of Questions During Meet the Candidate Night

todayOctober 28, 2022 179

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Panelists Melissa Humble, Morgan Sneary, Kathy Schroeder

Hardin Leadership and the Hardin County Chamber and Business Alliance sponsored a Meet the Candidate forum Thursday evening.

In one of the contested races, Judge of the newly formed Juvenile and Family Court, Maria Santo faces Mark Schwemer.

Maria Santo and Mark Schwemer

One of the questions had to do with the biggest challenge facing the new judge, answered first by Schwemer, ”There’s a lot of logistical things going into bringing these two courts together, and we’re going to see whoever is in that court’s going to have their hands full in trying to get that brought up to speed as quickly as possible.”

Santo answered next, ”The nightmare we’re going to have. We’re going paperless in January and we’re also merging two courts, and the clerks in Juvenile Court don’t have a clue as to anything related to the Domestic Relations, so they have to learn how to do all that and at the same time learn how to deal with being paperless, so it’s going to be a logistical nightmare.”

Another contested race is for State Representative of the 83rd District. Incumbent Republican Jon Cross is facing Democratic challenger Claire Osborne.

Jon Cross and Claire Osborne

One of the questions had to do with their stand on abortion.

Cross made it clear that he supports life at conception and feels it is not a health care issue, ”The word care isn’t health care, and I believe health care is trying to protect a mother, protect that baby at all stages from life that starts at conception, and I think the district, my district, the 83rd District also believes the same.”

Osborne stated that she feels the restrictions in the state go too far, ”While I am sure that people really meant these laws with the best intentions, they are hurting very real people, and we need to ensure that our state is a safe state for women to access this health care need.”

To listen to the complete Meet the Candidate forum, listen to the podcast the WKTN podcast: https://wktn.com/category/other-podcast

Written by: WKTN Staff

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