Guess who’s coming to dinner Tonight, it will be 10 City Council candidates, two of whom want to be Tracy mayor, and the additional $100 a month salary that comes with that job.

The Tracy Press local candidates’ forum at Poet Christian Elementary School will start at the dinner hour, 6 p.m., and conclude when usually most commuters have drifted off to sleep, 10 p.m. We encourage you to eat early and stay up late to attend the event because this election is very important to the future of our city. The issues are many, from youth sports facilities to planned residential growth beginning in 2013. And the positions of the candidates are varied.

Because the field of candidates is immense, the forum will be divided into two parts. From 6 to 8:15 p.m., the eight council candidates will address the issues with prepared remarks and answers to questions posed by the audience and a Tracy Press panel. For each of these candidates, it will be his or her 14 minutes or so of fame to shape their campaigns in the final weeks.

At 8:30, mayoral candidates Celeste Garamendi and Brent Ives, Tracy’s mayor pro tem, will go one-on-one with the panel and the audience. Similar to last week’s Rep. Richard Pombo-Jerry McNerney and Gerry Machado-Cathleen Galgiani tussles, this discussion should enable voters to see the differences in the two mayoral candidates.

Tonight’s forum is a display of participatory democracy at its roots. We invite you to attend the forum to meet the candidates and ask them questions. If you cannot make the event, Tracy Community Action Television, Channel 26, will be replying tapes of the forum until Election Day, Nov. 7.