Two years ago, the South Whidbey Record dove head first into the crowded pool of area organizations that hold election forums.

The idea wasn’t to compete with those groups and their events, but largely to provide members of the public with yet another opportunity to learn about the candidates, the people who were asking for your trust, your vote. It’s our opinion that when it comes to being informed, there really is never too much of a good thing.

So, in keeping with that belief and newfound Record tradition, we’re holding another forum. It’s from 6:30 to 8:45 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 30 in the Langley United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall.

Participants will include those vying for three races: Tim Callison and Sharon Emerson for Langley mayor; Rob Born and Georgia Gardner for Whidbey General Hospital commissioner, position 2; and Erika Carnahan and Nancyjean Fey for hospital commissioner, position 4.

All three positions will be on South Whidbey ballots and decided in the Nov. 3 General Election.

First, we’d like to thank all the candidates for their willingness to participate. It takes guts to run for elected office, and even more to stand before a gathering of voters and explain why you think you’re the best person for the job. Candidates open themselves to scrutiny, criticism, even ridicule, all in the name — presumably — of public service. Our hats are off to them, all of them.

That said, we’re of course excited about the chance to learn more about the candidates, including how they perform in a public setting. It’s easy to recite practiced positions on various issues in small and private gathers, but it’s a bit harder in front of a crowd of expectant faces.

We’ll also be shaking things up a bit by using a format recently discontinued by the League of Women Voters, the tireless group of volunteers who work every year to keep us informed by holding forums up and down Whidbey Island. Several years ago, the organization stopped taking questions from the crowd, instead opting to spend the priceless seconds at each event quizzing candidates with refined, focused and relevant questions.

Having struggled with, for lack of a better term, audience plants — people with political agendas who seem more focused on embarrassing or exposing candidates than being informed — it was an understandable and positive change. But we believe there was some value in the old format. How candidates respond to rude or even unfair questions from the crowd — something they will face in real life as elected officials — can be just as telling to voters as what they say.

Suffice to say, we’ll be asking the first round of questions but will open it up to the audience. So prepare your queries, South Whidbey, and clear your schedules for the last evening of September, a day where we’ll all become a little better informed about who will best represent each of us.