On Sunday September 15th, congressman Jason Crow along with state representatives Meg Froelich and Tom Sullivan held a town hall meeting in the LHS auditorium. This meeting was held to discuss local issues that were important to each representative and the community.
The purpose of this event was to reach out to the community and see what issues that they wanted to be heard by the representatives. Many groups showed up such as Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and Green Team, “an on-the-ground, focused advocacy effort” launched by the EDF Action and the NRDC Action Fund, according to their website.
Although Representative Crow’s Facebook page advertised the event as focused on ”infrastructure, affordable housing, education, gun violence prevention”, many other questions were asked about climate change, healthcare for all, and even standardized testing, along with all of the issues that were stated on Facebook.
“One of the things that I’ve realized is trust between the American people and their elected officials is at an all time low, so what I want to show is that people can have their voices heard…so I’m doing town halls, coffees on the corners, meet and greets, round tables all the time to show up to listen to what the concerns are in the community, to learn from them and to let them know where I stand and what I’m doing representing them.”
-Representative Jason Crow
All three of the representatives agree that town halls are important and helpful not only for the people in the community but for them to see what is working and what needs to change.
“One of the most important things, and it relates to why we have our town halls, is to fight against the drumbeat of anti-politics and anti-government and that there’s a difference between politics and civics. We all want to be participants in our community, and we’re all legislating on matters that affect students and even prior to you being able to vote, you’re being impacted so you should definitely talk to us and let us know and visit us and be involved in the process,” said Representative Meg Froelich.
While it’s not just high school students who they want to hear from, all three representatives have prominent stances on education as well as gun violence prevention, and students are the best way to hear about problems concerning those issues, despite students being reluctant to face those issues and discuss them.
“We need to hear their situations and we need to make their schools safe. We need to find out from them what the impact of the things we’ve been implementing on them is. I hate to tell high school students I don’t want you to grow up sooner than you have to, but we live in a climate right now where you do have to take seriously.”
-Representative Tom Sullivan
“….I hate to have to tell you that you have to grow up, I want you to hold off as long as you can, be a kid as long as you can. There are some things to keep you safe, to let you understand what’s going on and what you have to do,” said representative Tom Sullivan.
Town hall meetings are one of the best ways for an elected official to face the community and see issues that matter to the people, which is why they end up being so important and being able to talk about these issues in a civil matter is what makes those relationships in government so significant.
