I attended the town hall meeting this past weekend with Michelle Caldier, state representative in Legislative District 26 with my friend Rick. (I’ll link his video at the end of this post, in case you missed the town hall)
The “late night hannie word salad” review starts here. I actually arrived on time. I got a pretty decent parking spot, and I was greeted with a large crowd of people already signing in. I am always excited to see turnout like this, and how thrilled I was. There are a lot of political pages/groups that are focusing on how to get people involved in our local and state government and issues. So with things that are happening nationally as well as in our state and local areas, people want to know how to be heard by those who are representing them. I’m just excited to see everyone, thank you to everyone who attended, and I will continue with my review now.
(I have not had opportunity to scan Michelle’s handouts from her town hall, but I will and those will be included here, along with photos)
I made my way around the room to say hi to people, and was going to sit in my usual spot but Rick had set up on the other side of the room. No problem. I can go up and say hi to Michelle (I did), and I got to meet the “voice of the Republicans” John Sattgast. He is the broadcast coordinator for the Washington State House Republicans. We chatted about legislative history in the 26th district (Jan Angel!). It wasn’t until he picked up the microphone and started speaking that I realized that John IS the voice of the Republicans, because when I heard his voice, I realized that he is the person who hosts Washington State Republican telephone town halls.
All in all the place was packed full of people. Many of the people who were at Port Orchard City Hall for the protest walked up and they brought all sorts of signs. The first portion of the town hall was Michelle explaning about how she is a state representative, and she understood that many in the crowd were upset and worried about things happening at the federal level. She is in the state legislature and so her focus is on things at state level.
Michelle talked about her handouts that were at the sign in table, and we went into questions and answers. Many people stood up and asked great questions, and a few of them were centered around “but how is this going to affect me locally, and what are you doing to help us locally?”
I’m excited for next weekend’s town halls, as it’s been a few minutes since I’ve heard from our representaties in Olympia and what they’re up to. (I have been watching TVW, but I’m talking in person)
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