Two of the four candidates vying to be the next governor of West Virginia will participate in a forum in Charleston Tuesday night on how to grow "21st century jobs" in West Virginia.
Former U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin and Senate Minority Leader Jeff Kessler, both Democrats, will participate in the event which will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. at the University of Charleston's Geary Auditorium.
The event is free and open to the public.
Businessman Jim Justice, the other Democrat in the race, declined an invitation to speak, as did Senate President Bill Cole, the likely Republican nominee.
The event is sponsored by Create WV, a community and economic development non-profit.
Goodwin and Kessler will be asked questions by five citizens: Sarah Forbes, an expert in carbon capture and sequestration technology; Dr. Dan Foster, a health care advocate and former state senator; Ankur Kumar, an engineering student at West Virginia University; Logan Spears, the founder of a Morgantown software company; and Ed Welch, the president of the University of Charleston.
There will also be questions from the live audience and online participants.
"This is an executive level job interview conducted by a diverse group of people who thoroughly understand innovation," Sarah Halstead, board president of Create WV, said in a prepared statement.
"Everyone will have an opportunity to judge for themselves what these candidates know about creating jobs in promising industries. We'll learn what each knows, and doesn't know, about 21st century opportunities upon which our state is uniquely positioned to expand. Voters need to know what each of these men will do to attract and retain the new job and opportunity makers."
On April 16, all three Democrats - Goodwin, Justice and Kessler - will participate in a forum hosted by the state Democratic Party.
The 11 a.m. event at the Charleston Civic Center will be televised by West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
Each candidate will be given a number of tickets to the event, to hand out to supporters.
Representatives from state newspapers, including the Gazette-Mail, will be on hand to ask questions of the candidates.
The questions will not be provided to the candidates before the event, state Democratic Party Chairwoman Belinda Biafore said.