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Town Hall In Cottage Grove Crowded Yet Civil

BY RACHAEL MCDONALD

Cottage Grove, OR  August 12, 2009 3:17 p.m.

About 300 people showed up for a town hall meeting with Congressman Peter DeFazio in Cottage Grove Wednesday.

Because of the crowd, the meeting was moved outside the community center to the parking lot.

While there were shouts and interruptions, for the most part the meeting was civil. KLCC's Rachael McDonald reports.


The crowd peppered DeFazio with questions about the health care plan. The Congressman spent a lot of time trying to dispel myths and remind people it's still a work in progress.

Some people got interrupted, like this man who says he can't get health insurance because of an injury.

Many in the audience were supportive of a single payer plan, which Defazio says is *not the proposal. Others were leery of any program run by the federal government.

After the town hall, Leslie Rubenstein said she appreciated that the meeting was moved outside to accommodate the overflow crowd.

Leslie Rubenstein: “And I was also pleased that there was only minor heckling. The crowd seemed to say shhh, let the Congressman speak. Let her ask her question."

DeFazio is holding more town halls this week and next throughout his district.

© 2009 KLCC

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Comments

August 14, 2009
10:14 a.m.
Back in 2006 I was at a town hall meeting in Canyonville with Mr. DeFazio when someone brought up empeachment of Bush/Cheney. Mr. DeFazio said that was, "off the table. Congress has much more important work to do". At that point, my faith in Mr DeFazio started to crumble. Now, with his retort that a single payer plan is, "not the proposal" it has crumbled even more. I've been a big fan of Peter DeFazio for many years, and have voted for him every election that he's run in, but I'm afraid he's just not as progressive as I need him to be. The dismissive way he's handled these two events shows me that he does not want to hear what the constituents have to say about certain things, no matter how important they are to us. Many of us were shocked back in 2006 when we learned that empeachment wouldn't even be discussed. Now, if a public option (a much lessor desired outcome to universal single payer plan) doesn't get any traction from our representative, I will be looking for someone nearer my progressive mind-set to vote for next time he runs. Public option is a watered down version of what is needed. Extend medicare to anyone who wants it, at least! I don't want to hear about how costly Medicare is....... so is the Iraq/Afganistan war, but that didn't stop us from plunging head first into that quagmire. We need to evolve BEYOND war and toward health care for ALL Americans. If we can "OK" a bill that sends us to a war of choice and cost us trillions of dollars, there is no excuse for thousands of Americans dying each year because they don't have health insurance.

— Posted by pollyanna999

August 16, 2009
9:19 p.m.
Well pollyanna, I agree with what you say, but our representatives are running a little scared right now. Look what Brian Baird tried to do with his meetings. What you have is a lot of thugs out there right now who get their information from Rush Bigmouth and think it's the true story. They then go to the town halls and try to take them over based on the untruths and it's got everyone running scared. Baird said the other day he was getting death threats, so I think the "brown shirt" comment was quite appropriate. The right doesn't want a discussion, they want a shout down and fist fights, you have to do something about that first.

— Posted by aok


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