In March, a small group of friends read an article from Washington Monthly titled "Let's Create Town Hall Night in America." We were all inspired and began to implement the idea locally. On June 20th we held our first Town Hall meeting in Galilee, PA. This meeting was well attended, with participants indicating that they were looking forward to the next meeting.

Of course, our first choice to be our featured speaker was Rep. Rob Bresnahan. There is a protocol for inviting Mr. Bresnahan to an event, but when we tried to follow that, we discovered that you were expected to be a formal organization with a website. We were just a small group of citizens and did not meet either criterion.

On June 9th I spoke to a staff member at Mr. Bresnahan's office and asked for advice. I was assured that if I gave him the information that he would relay it to the representative. I supplied him with the details, including contact information. We did not get a response from Mr. Bresnahan, and proceeded with the "empty chair" Town Hall meeting. The event was filmed and a copy was sent to Mr. Bresnahan's office.

A short time later Mr. Bresnahan's office did respond to our event in the River Reporter, stating, "This event was a radical-left protest masquerading as a non-partisan forum. Our office received a meeting request with a vague description of the event. However, we were informed only two days prior, and, with his busy schedule we let them know that Rob was unable to attend."

We were undeterred by that mischaracterization, and firmly believe that everyone needs to understand the local impacts of what is happening in Washington. If you would like to form your own impressions of the Galilee meeting, you can see the video at our new website: https://waynecountyvoices.org/.  

 

Our next Town Hall meeting, titled "We're talking, who's listening," will include a panel of experts, and will be held on Friday, September 19, at the Settler's Inn-the Undercroft, 4 Main Ave., in Hawley, PA, beginning at 7 p.m. In preparation for this event, on August 5 we went to Mr. Bresnahan's Scranton office and hand-delivered an invitation with details of the event and contact information. We were once again assured that the invitation would be delivered to Rep. Bresnahan. As of September 8, we have had no response, but will have a chair waiting.

 

Roger Brinkerhoff

Milanville, PA