LONG BEACH >> The city’s Cambodian community held its first ever mayoral candidate forum Sunday evening.
The event was attended by six candidates and is being heralded by leaders in the Cambodian, or Khmer, community as a milestone. It was held from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in a packed room at the Pka Roam Tek Roam Restaurant, 1360 E. Anaheim St., Suite 205.
Khmer leaders and community members alike said they hope that the forum will lay a foundation for future collaboration.
“In the past, the community wasn’t really engaged in electing the civic leadership,” said Anthony Kim, spokeswoman for the Khmer American Civic Engagement Committee, the organization that hosted to forum. “We talked about it and we’ve come together in 2014. We’ll definitely make a difference.”
The city is home to the second largest group of Cambodians outside of Southeast Asia, Kim said.
Damon Dunn, Doug Otto, Gerrie Schipske, Jana Shields, Robert Garcia and Steven Mozena participated in the forum, which included a six questions drawn from the Khmer community spanning topics such as business, economics and public safety.
Questions included whether candidates would support hiring Khmer-speaking teachers, police officers and 911 dispatchers. Calls also came forward to utilize a vacant lot owned by the city at the corner of Anaheim Street and Walnut Avenue to create a new mall or community center.
A proposal for redistricting to unite the Cambodian community into one district was met with applause from the crowd.
Each candidate said they supported the proposals, but differed slightly on how they said they would work with the community to achieve those goals.
But Sunday’s forum was as much about engaging the Khmer community as it was about the candidates answering questions.
“We want to encourage our residents to vote,” Kim said. “They vote but not it large numbers.”
So far, it appears that the forum was a success.
“When we (proposed) this we thought we’d be lucky to get 150 people,” Kim said. “We almost overfilled. We had 200 people that wanted to come tonight.”
Sam Keo, a volunteer at Sunday’s forum and an instructional assistant for the Long Beach Unified School District, said that the forum filled him with hope.
Although the Khmer community is one of the city’s most visible, Keo said he has not seen much civic involvement among the people he knows.
“It’s about time that the community woke up,” Keo said. “I feel that this is a great opportunity.”
Education and jobs were among Keo’s top issues.
Charles Song, chairman of the Khmer American Civic Engagement Committee, said he is encouraged to see people like Keo come out.
“This is a great start ,” Song said. “This is a historic moment for all of us. I’ve been living here since the early 80s and I hope that our young generation will get involved.”
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