COLAB and Imperial County Registrar of Voters hosts Candidate Training Workshop

IMPERIAL, Calif. (KYMA) - The Coalition of Labor, Agriculture and Business of Imperial County (COLAB) and the Imperial County Registrar of Voters hosted a Candidate Training Workshop Monday.

The workshop took place at the Ag Center, located at 485 Business Parkway in Imperial, at 5:30 p.m.

COLAB said the workshop was for those who are interested in seeking to run for office in Imperial County, whether at the school, city or county level.

The following topics during the workshop included:

• Becoming a candidate, where Imperial County Registrar of Voters Linsey Dale explained candidate eligibility, filing requirements, nomination documents, important deadlines and more.
• Campaign finance, where Adriana Murillo Kirby, with Kirby Business Solutions, discussed campaign finance and reporting requirements, recordkeeping, required forms and common financial mistakes candidates should avoid.
• Lessons from the campaign trail, where Imperial County Supervisor Martha Cardenas-Singh shared her firsthand perspective on deciding to run, developing a campaign plan, fundraising, building a campaign team, reaching voters and transitioning from candidate to elected official.

"When you run for elected office it's really confusing and there's a lot of deadlines," said Shelby Trimm, Executive Director of COLAB. "So what we like to do is just bring in the people who know about the deadlines...people who have ran before and really just go over that with them and really break it down."

She said seeing the community step up brings her immense optimism for the region's future leadership.

"Just looking at everyone in the audience and hearing the questions that they're asking but also the input that they're giving, it just gives me a lot of confidence for Imperial Valley that we are going to have a lot of good elected officials in office," Trimm explained.

If you plan to run for office but missed the workshop, you can find more information here.