An Open Letter To My Congressional Representative, Ms. Jamie Beutler
A response to your form email regarding the town hall you held.
Ms. Beutler,
I am responding to the form email you sent me regarding your recent town hall meeting (or lack thereof). In the email you stated the following:
“To date, I have held over 66 successful in-person town hall meetings, telephone town halls, and community coffee meetings throughout Southwest Washington that are free and open to the public.”
I do not find this explanation of your current actions to be factually accurate nor are they a good faith attempt to connect with your constituents. To date you have only held one town hall by phone since you have been elected to the 3rd congressional district in Washington State.
When I filled out the online form on your website and gave you my contact information, I was told the following:
“By submitting this information, you will receive a call from me to the given phone number inviting you to future official community events and telephone town halls I am hosting.”
I did not expect that this notification would take the form of calling me out-of-the-blue for just a “telephone town hall.” A telephone town hall is not a substitute for an in person town hall for the following reasons:
- A town hall held via phone allows for the screening of questions. Which obviously allows for you to screen out the ones you don’t like.
- Your telephone town hall was held without notice and with no opportunity to prepare questions for you to answer in person.
- Many phone plans including mine, do not allow for spending multiple hours on the phone.
In the future I hope that you will be able to meet your constituents face to face with ample warning. The people you represent in government want to meet you in person and discuss topics of great importance that face our nation.
You represent us. I hope you will take our time more seriously in the future.
Sincerely,
A Concerned Citizen
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