Town Hall meetings scheduled
Oddly enough, I probably received this notice because I’m on the Relay For Life mailing list after participating last year – it came with a laundry list of budget priorities the American Cancer Society seeks here in Maryland. But it had a useful nugget of political information on it that I’ve seen nowhere else.
To get input from the public in anticipation of the upcoming 426th Session of the Maryland General Assembly, Del. James Mathias and Del. Norman Conway will hold town meetings scheduled for:
- Saturday, Jan. 17 – Pocomoke Fire House, 10 to 11:30 a.m., Snow Hill Library, 2:30 to 4 p.m.
- Saturday, Jan. 24 – Pittsville Fire House, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Ocean Pines Library, 2:30 to 4 p.m.
- Saturday, Jan. 31 – Ocean City Library, 4 to 5:30 p.m.
- Saturday, Feb. 7 – Salisbury, Wicomico Public Library, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
It’ll be quite interesting to see just how they interact with the residents back in the district and respond to their concerns, particularly when the state is staring down the barrel of a billion-dollar plus budget deficit. Remember, Maryland is quite unique among states in that the Governor sets the budget and the General Assembly can only cut from it before approval. This means Delegates Conway and Mathias will have to keep their knives sharpened, and perhaps the meetings will be sounding boards to determine which sacrifices the public will stomach.
Needless to say, I might just have to stop by one with notebook in hand.
And I might have to ask Norm Conway whether he’s possibly learned the lesson that raising taxes is counterproductive to increasing revenue - Jim Mathias may have already figured it out because he voted against those tax issues in the 2007 Special Session, to his credit.
Speaking of giving credit to Democrats, I’ll give Congressman Kratovil props for going against the vast majority of his party and not voting to ramrod through Barney Frank’s TARP Reform bill (H.R. 384). The resolution in question would essentially limit debate to two hours and not allow for amendments. Still, the resolution passed so that bill is now on the fast track to approval.
I think there’s much better ways to use that money than what Barney Frank has in mind for it, such as not borrowing it to begin with.
In the meantime, let’s see if Frank Kratovil can maintain at least the 5% (1 vote of 22 so far) of the time he goes against the remainder of the Democrats, or if this vote is an outlier.
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