ELKHORN, Neb. (KMTV) — During elections, debates can help voters stay informed and that is what Elkhorn public school board candidate Brett Elliot said he wanted to accomplish with his candidate forum.
But there has been some confusion surrounding it.
"We think if you guys could pull together a forum that had all of the candidates there with an open Q&A, no preset questions, that there would be real value in that," said Brett Elliot.
Elliot is a member of Team SET, a group of three Elkhorn Public School board candidates campaigning together.
Elliot says the team and three opponents each organized their own separate candidate forums.
With the election quickly approaching, Team SET wanted to plan another forum, this time with all six candidates.
And that's where the confusion began.
The first issue was with advertisement.
Team SET and its members put out advertisements for the forum featuring photos of all 6 candidates.
But all three of Team SET's opponents declined to participate.
"Perhaps in hindsight, we should have waited, but it's still open to all," said Elliot.
The confusion continued with sponsors.
Team SET said the event was sponsored by the West Omaha Chamber of Commerce.
A copy of an email posted to Facebook appears to show West Omaha's Chamber Executive Director Trevor Hudson advertising the event but Elliot says shortly after those emails went out the West Omaha Chamber pulled its sponsorship.
He claims it was due to harassment.
"They put out the invitations to each of the candidates and once that happened, West O chamber started getting harassed, basically," said Elliot.
West Omaha Chamber of Commerce did not respond to a request for comment from KMTV.
On their Facebook page, Team SET claims that the chamber was responsible for all of the promotion and communication with candidate campaigns.
But another email posted to Nextdoor purportedly from Hudson shows him distancing himself from the event, saying that the chamber didn't have any money, time or effort attached to the event in any way.
But the forum isn't the only drama surrounding Team SET.
Team SET has also sent out several mailers highlighting endorsements.
One of those endorsing the team was a partner at a local accounting firm Bland and Associates.
Team SET included a disclaimer on their mailer saying the titles and affiliations for the endorsers are only provided for identification purposes, but a message posted today on Bland and Associates says the usage of their name was unauthorized and that they do not endorse any candidates.
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