One of the smallest counties in the nation, Ohio County, Indiana (pop 6128) is joining with neighboring Dearborn County to host a Constituent’s Town Hall with a difference. Because we are not using all of the #ResistanceRecess materials we are not allowed to sign-up with them to publicize our event but I thought the Daily Kos community would want to know what we are doing.
Our newly elected, first term senator, Todd Young (R) and our congressman, Luke Messer (IN-6, member of GOP House leadership) are not available at any public events during the recess so we decided to hold an event designed to produce a small but rich media package we can send out including video, audio, photo documentation and a couple of pre-written articles (these latter for our local press).
While we would love to focus on the ACA, immigration and the SCOTUS nominee, as directed by #ResistanceRecess, those aren’t the issues that will drive our local communities. We have decided to focus on the ACA, Social Security & Medicare, the heroin epidemic and charter schools. These are issues with enormous resonance in our area right now and we determined that creating local energy and demonstrating that we are listening took precedence over the pre-digested questions and materials being put out by national-level groups.
We also thought that, if at all possible, we wanted to attract the attention of larger coastal media so we thought about what might set our event apart. Toward that end we are having a themed town hall using the well know character Waldo from the Where’s Waldo series of books. We are creating life-sized Todd “Waldo” Young and Luke “Waldo” Messer cutouts which will be free-standing. Attendees will be encouraged to take selfies with Todd & Luke and to post them widely.
Additionally, before each of our planned questions we have a call and response plan that goes something like this:
Moderator: Congressman Messer, we would love to have asked you this next question in person but…
Helper: (holding up cue card)
Crowd: Where’s Luke?!?
Moderator: Well, Luke isn’t here but we are going to ask anyway. (Asks one of our questions then calls upon one or two people from the crowd to tell their personal story relating to the subject of the question. Each person telling a story has about 90 seconds.)
One of the members of our group is sewing red and white “scarves” and we have a few other surprises in store. All of this will take place on the steps of the Ohio County Courthouse in little Rising Sun, IN (pop 2304). The courthouse, built in 1845, is the oldest continually operating courthouse in Indiana. We selected it as our site because it is lovely and conveys small town, Midwestern America in a way that words cannot. Our event takes place at 1PM on Sunday, 26 February. We invite anyone in the area to join us who wants to laugh and to express their concern in a peaceful, respectful, lawful manner.
For anyone interested, this is the text of the press release we sent out:
Dearborn and Ohio County, Indiana - February 20, 2017 - A group of local Indiana District 6 voters want to attend town hall meetings with their elected representatives, Senator Todd Young and Congressman Luke Messer. The problem is that Young and Messer are very difficult to find.
“Where’s Todd? Where’s Luke?” wonder Rebecca Barhorst and Tricia Gaustad, co-chairs of the Where’s Waldo- themed Constituents’ Town Hall. The event is scheduled for Sunday, February 26 at 1PM in front of the Ohio County Courthouse in Rising Sun, Indiana.
“Our elected officials represent all of us but during this recess they appear to only be listening to one side,” said Barhorst. “Our stories are personal. We are worried about important life-altering issues. We deserve, at the very least, to be heard,” added Gaustad. Event organizers plan to ask questions of their missing representatives and will invite attendees to share how proposed changes will effect them and their families.