Billings city officials shared advice with a room full of people interested in running for local offices Tuesday morning.
The event is called Candidate School — a free class put on by the Billings Chamber of Commerce— that allows people such as Patrick Olp, who is running for Billings City Council, to explore their interests in city leadership.
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“This candidate school that the chamber put together, I think, was so informative and talks about all of the things that you probably did think about and then a lot of things that you maybe hadn't thought about or didn't know,” Olp said.
While you do not need to run for office to attend the class, one Billings City Council candidate, Earnest Hammer, is already making campaign signs. He says Candidate School taught him some things he didn’t know.
“I thought it very informative about what you can do and what you can't do and how to run a campaign and how to keep track of your expenses and some of those kinds of things,” Hammer said.
The class taught attendees about campaigning, finance and operations.
One Billings mayoral candidate, Amanda Housler, said learning about running for office has surprised her.
“A lot of people that I've been talking to, they think that you have to have a specific name or a lot of money behind you, and you really don't. You just got to get out there and talk and fill out the right paperwork,” she said.
Each person who attended the class received a certificate of completion in return.
The filing week for local offices starts May 27. Election Day is Nov. 4.
