Citizens will have two kinds of opportunities to grill candidates on fiscal taxpayer issues when the Fluvanna Taxpayers Association holds its first-ever Board of Supervisors candidate forum on Tuesday, September 29.

They can submit questions in advance for the “Jim Lehrer/PBS-style” part of the forum to be led by a journalist moderator. The moderator will pose questions to the candidates that have been contributed by citizens from across the county. Citizens attending the forum also will have an opportunity to ask questions from the audience later on in the program.

The moderator for the event will be Fluvanna resident Dennis Holder, a prize-winning journalist with more than 40 years of experience in print, broadcast and electronic media. He has reported for newspapers including The Atlanta Journal, The Los Angeles Times and The Miami Herald, where he was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. His broadcast credits include WSB radio news in Atlanta and the International Desk of CBS Television News. A former senior contributing editor to Washington Journalism Review, he has written more than 1,600 articles for periodicals such as Forbes, Working Woman, National Journal and some 200 others.

There's still time to submit questions, said FTA chair Elizabeth Franklin.

“We've received many really good, well-thought-out questions, but we're looking for more,” said Franklin. “Questions should concern fiscal taxpayer issues since that's the focus of the forums and of FTA.”

Citizens can send their questions to FTA Questions Committee, c/o elizabethfranklin@earthlink.net, or mail to “FTA  Forums,” 1779 Dogwood Rd., Kents Store, VA 23084.

The best questions received - based on taxpayer relevance, timeliness and topical variety - will be selected and put to candidates. Specify whether the question is for the Supervisors forum on Sept. 29 or the School Board forum to follow on October 20. Both forums will be held from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at the Fluvanna Library. The nonpartisan events are open to the public.

All five Board of Supervisors candidates have committed to participate in the first forum: Joe Chesser, Rivanna District; Shaun Kenney, Columbia District; Marvin Moss, Columbia District; Keith Smith, Cunningham District; and Don Weaver, Cunningham District.

“This is a first-time event for FTA,” said Franklin, “so volunteers are pitching in to do all the things necessary to ensure it's a success. This is an ambitious grassroots undertaking - and an important one because our forums uniquely focus on policies and decisions affecting citizens' tax bills.”