Plans Announced for the 2026 Fort Atkinson City Council Candidate Forum
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A Fort Atkinson City Council Candidate Forum will be held on Thursday, March 19th, from 6:00pm to 8:00pm, at the Fort Atkinson Dwight Foster Public Library, FCCU Community Room, and is open to the public. The library is located at 209 Merchants Ave, Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin 53538. The Candidate Forum is hosted by nonprofit Citizen Leadership Forum, Inc. of Fort Atkinson, in conjunction with the April 7th Spring election.
Who’s on the Ballot?
For the two open city council seats this year 2026, four candidates have garnered sufficient nomination signatures to appear on the April Ballot. Draw-by-lot for candidate placement occurred January 9th. According to Fort Atkinson City Clerk Michelle Ebbert, candidate placement on the April 7th ballot is as follows:
John Ciccarelli
Nathan Friedl
Jena Price
Bruce Johnson
How the Forum Works
The Candidate Forum will open with a three-minute introduction and opening statement by each candidate, followed by prepared questions from the moderator where candidates will be given three minutes to respond. Each candidate may then offer a one-minute challenge response. Members of the audience will have an opportunity to ask their own questions or offer rebuttals to the candidates in the second half of the forum, either by providing questions in writing (cards will be provided for written questions at the forum) or may ask questions verbally from the podium.
“This is your time to meet city council candidates and express your ideas and concerns regarding local government,” said John Donohue, Executive Director, Citizens Leadership Forum.
The four qualifying council candidates earlier provided Fort Atkinson Independent Reporter their statements as to personal backgrounds, their views and positions on what they perceive as key local governance issues, and how they propose to address those issues if elected. Those statements are provided in a separate news article on the Fort Atkinson Independent Reporter website, and will also be available in print format at the forum.
City Council Composition
Fort Atkinson Municipal Code states, “The council shall consist of five members elected at large, who shall serve for terms of two years. Of the five members of the council, two shall be elected in each of the even-numbered years and three in each of the odd-numbered years” (Fort Atkinson Municipal Code, Sec. 2-51, Membership).
Council members Bruce Johnson and Eric Schultz currently hold the two seats up for election. Only Johnson is re-running. Schultz earlier filed a Notification of Non-Candidacy. The other three seats - not up for election this year - are held by incumbents Peggy Huckabee, Kyle Jaeckel, and
Davin Lescohier. These three seats are unaffected by this 2026 election cycle, but will be up for election in April 2027.
About Citizen Leadership Forum
This is the second annual Fort Atkinson City Council Candidate Forum sponsored by the Citizen Leadership Forum, Inc., a Fort Atkinson-based non-stock, non-profit Wisconsin corporation, whose mission is to “advance an informed electorate.” For more information, contact Citizen Leadership Forum at 920-397-7276.