Congressman Randy Kuhl held a town hall meeting Saturday in Henrietta. YouTube clips are going up and you can agree or disagree with the various commentary that goes with the clips, the ones that have been posted here or elsewhere or the ones that are coming.

Not to be forgotten in all this is this point. Citizens are speaking to their elected official.

Regular people, with likely no formal training in public speaking, debating, or inside analysis of the issues took a chance and left their comfort zone and addressed their concerns to their elected representative. Some did better than others to be sure but they all tried. In this case trying is better than not trying and one can only get better by trying. There are various interpretations of the meeting. A hostile crowd, angry protesters and the like. We didn’t see a hostile crowd just concerned people who wanted to express their feeling to their representative.

Here is Rochesterturning’s take - the overview.

Randy played well to a packed audience - as long as you played to his ground rules. The ground rules are – He is here to listen so he doesn’t debate constituents on the issues.

Randy fielded questions ranging from:

• Dealing with the invasive Asian Carp in the Great Lakes
• Being named in a NYT article about circumventing new lobbying laws
• Including all expected expenditures in the budget – no supplementals for Iraq
• Need money to build infrastructure “over here” not “over there”
• Unfair trade practices and job movement overseas
• The Union Bill which Randy recently voted against
• Concerns about restoring funding in the form of what is commonly known as the Bush Tax cuts
• Concern for the Environment and environmental protections
• Concern about having too much support for the administration (from a Life Long Republican)
• Ensuring no tax dollars support Planned Parenthood and the like.

There was another topic. What was it? Oh yeah, the looming Elephant in the room, Iraq and Iran and Congressman Kuhl’s support of the Administration policies.

Several constituents could not get the clarification they asked for. This caused several discussions and respectful but tense exchanges. Why? Well, see Randy’s rules. He isn’t here to debate.

As part of the Iraq discussion a representative from MoveOn.org succeeded in delivering some letters to Congressman Kuhl thus closing an activity MoveOn had sponsored a while back at Randy’s Fairport office.

A note about MoveOn.org. Here was a chance for people to click a petition and get them delivered en masse to their Representative. You have to admire the ease at access someone (the first few letters were from the Southern Tier) can join a group, express written concern and someone in Henrietta delivers these concerns to their Representative. Powerful to say the least. Regardless of one’s opinion on groups like this, the simple fact is groups like this are an “on-ramp” for citizens to become involved. How does Democracy work? People are becoming engaged in the process.

There were a couple of folks who held signs of protest but it is thier right to do so. Again, what amazes me (I’m not the sign holding type) is people move out of their comfort zone to express their opinion. In this case the sign holders were silent and simply held the signs. Not my choice but I respect their right to do so.

So, how does Democracy work? Access to officials and informed public. Hats off to Randy for allowing some access to his constituents - I think the audience wants to hear why you voted on certain issues. Randy did his part on Saturday and the constituents did theirs.

Growth comes from getting out of your comfort zone, Randy I’d like you express your rationale for voting certain ways. Of course some of our citizenry practice their delivery - all this helps our government work better.

Some clips have been posted, more are coming.

At least the conversations are starting.