The San Joaquin County Civic Alliance will live up to its name by hosting town halls in consecutive weeks featuring newly elected officials answering questions from moderators and local residents.
The first event will take place Thursday, Sept. 4, when Stockton Vice Mayor and District 6 Councilmember Jason Lee and District 4 Councilmember Mario Enriquez will discuss the first eight months of their terms at 6 p.m. at Delta College’s Dawn Mabalon Forum. On Sept. 11, San Joaquin County Supervisors Sonny Dhaliwal and Mario Gardea will participate, also scheduled for 6 p.m. in the same place and both town halls are free to the public.
All the participants were elected in 2024. District 2 Councilmember Mariela Ponce, who was also elected in 2024, did not respond to requests to attend, according to event officials.
The officials will answer questions from the panel, which will include members of the education community and the media, and the audience can submit questions in writing.
The San Joaquin County Civic Alliance is a collaboration of the community organizations who present candidate forums at Delta College during election season.
Participating organizations include Delta College’s political science department, the Business Council of San Joaquin County, California State University Stanislaus — Stockton, the Greater Stockton Chamber of Commerce, the African American Chamber of Commerce, the San Joaquin County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Central Valley Asian American Chamber of Commerce, the Stockton branch of the NAACP, The Record, Stocktonia and the League of Women Voters of San Joaquin County.
Suzy Daveluy, president of the League of Women Voters of San Joaquin County, said the alliance’s town halls are a natural way to follow up the candidate forums.
“These community organizations work together to present candidate forums in order to assist community members to make informed decisions when voting,” Daveluy said. “Now we want to follow up and hear from some of our newly elected officials and hear where they stand on some critical community issues now that they’ve had several months in office.”
Delta College is located at 5151 Pacific Avenue in Stockton. Delta College parking fees will be waived for this event.