INDIANAPOLIS — On Tuesday, Sept. 20, the Democratic and Republican candidates for Marion County prosecutor will meet at a forum on the northeast side of Indianapolis.
The North Shadeland Alliance is hosting the forum with Ryan Mears and Cyndi Carrasco at Castleton United Methodist Church at 6:30 p.m.
"The goal tonight is really just to inform the public. The public is the star of the show tonight," said Joe Garrison, co-founder of the North Shadeland Alliance. "We at the North Shadeland Alliance, we knew we had a lot of questions around this race. It's obviously a race that is prominent in the area, and important. A lot of people are talking about, so we just kind of thought, 'What if we had the opportunity to let the community members ask questions of these candidates and hear their responses?'"
Garrison stressed that the forum is not a debate. It's a chance for the public to ask questions of the people vying for one of the top law enforcement positions in the city.
"We're really going to focus on the discussion aspect," Garrison said, "with the hope of really just getting information that people want to know the questions they have, get answers to those and hear the candidates' thoughts."
The North Shadeland Alliance was founded to fight crime along Shadeland Avenue, from Fall Creek Road to 82nd Street. The group has partnered with the 10 Points Alliance to help replicate that group's success. In the past year, the area has gone from seven homicides to just one.
"We're kind of focused on a corner of Indianapolis, but we want the whole city to be safer," Garrison said. "And we know that you know the prosecutor's office plays an important role. So, we want people to be informed, we want you to understand the difference between the candidates and make an educated decision, whichever one of those candidates you think will do a better job, and then, go vote November."
The group has been gathering questions from the public for the past few weeks, receiving nearly 150 questions. They will get to as many of them as they can.
The alliance wants the meeting to focus on the public and is not allowing the media to record any of it. If you'd like to see what the candidates say, you'll need to attend the meeting in-person tonight.