You can listen to archived audio from the October 7 SCCC Trustee candidate forum with candidates for the general election in November.

Candidates in attendance at the forum, in their speaking order as randomly drawn by number: Casey Mein; Kay Burtzloff; Brett Reiss; Dustin Ormiston.

Dandi Amerin served as moderator for the forum; Amerin serves on the Liberal Chamber of Commerce board.  The Liberal Chamber helped sponsor the forum, along with area media outlets including Seward County Broadcasting.

The candidates began with opening statements, in their randomly drawn speaking order:

Question 1: “What is the role of a Seward County Community College trustee?”
Kay Burtzloff; Brett Reiss; Dustin Ormiston; Casey Mein.

Q2: “What areas of growth would you like to see in old programs, or what new additional programs would you like to see?”
Reiss; Ormiston; Mein; Burtzloff.

Q3: “What do you believe is the biggest challenge facing Seward County Community College?”
Ormiston; Mein; Burtzloff; Reiss.

Q4: “Do you think that Seward County Community College can maintain its current rate of growth; if so, through what avenues could that growth occur and what problems could be a result?”
Mein; Burtzloff; Reiss; Ormiston.

Q5: “What are your thoughts of four year colleges expanding into the community college arena with programs?”
Burtzloff; Reiss; Ormiston; Mein.

Q6: “Do you see Seward County Community College offering four year degree programs?”
Reiss; Ormiston; Mein; Burtzloff. Follow-up by Reiss.

Q7: “Our current administration is allocating 900 billion to technical schools. How do you think this will affect our technical school?”
Ormiston; Mein; Burtzloff; Reiss.

Q8: “What solutions are you in favor of to solve the pool situation?”
Mein; Burtzloff; Reiss; Ormiston.

Q9: “Would you advocate for adding more sports programs?”
Burtzloff; Reiss; Ormiston; Mein.

Q10: “Seeing how capacity in the dorms was a pretty constant theme across those answers [to Q9], do you think expanding the dorm capacity should be a priority in the near future?”
Reiss; Ormiston; Mein; Burtzloff.

Q11: “Which do you think is a better avenue for funding the community colleges; the funding model of a third local, third federal, third state; or just a statewide sales tax?”
Ormiston; Mein; Burtzloff; Reiss. Follow-up by Ormiston.

Q12: “What do you think the most advantageous way for Seward County Community College would be to impact our local economy: through technical education, adult education, general education, business and industry, or…” [“I think it says”] “…athletics?”
Mein; Burtzloff; Reiss; Ormiston.

The Q-and-A portion of the forum concluded after this question.

The candidates gave their closing statements in the following speaker order:  Candidate Kay Burtzloff; Brett Reiss; Dustin Ormiston; Casey Mein.

Moderator Dandi Amerin then concluded the forum.