Niki Tsongas in Fitchburg 1-9-13

Wednes­day Con­gress­woman Niki Tsongas came to the Fitch­burg Pub­lic Library for her first event in Fitch­burg since being sworn in as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive in con­gress for the 3^rd district.

The event: “Con­gress on your Cor­ner” con­sisted of one on one (or two on one) meet­ings with var­i­ous con­stituents from the district.

The for­mat was sur­prise to most of the peo­ple who arrived expect­ing a town hall-​style event. At least one per­son who came decided to leave think­ing the for­mat was not con­ducive the type of open pub­lic debate she was look­ing for.

Per­son­ally I think the one on one setup is a good idea. Most peo­ple don’t get a chance to meet their rep­re­sen­ta­tive in con­gress let alone get pri­vate time face to face.

The event was announced through robo-​calls (I received one myself), through the local paper. and via her site. I arrived about 30 min­utes early and only a hand­ful of peo­ple were wait­ing but by the time Con­gress­woman Tsongas arrived the crowd con­tin­ued to grow until it was well over 35.

Local Pols were well rep­re­sented no fewer than 4 mem­bers of the Fitch­burg City Coun­sel attended. Mayor Lisa Wong was there, and State reps Jen Flana­gan & Steve DiNa­tale also came.

Con­gress­woman Tsongas met the local pols en mass near the start She com­mented those meet­ings are impor­tant because “…they are tasked with man­ag­ing the affairs of the community.”

Due to the num­ber of peo­ple there about 3 min­utes were allo­cated per per­son (or pair who choose to go in together) but even with a short period of time the I think it’s a good thing for vot­ers to meet their mem­ber of con­gress one on one.

Local repub­li­cans were well rep­re­sented. A reg­u­lar guest to my show Mary Lotz had some time with the con­gress­woman and was unimpressed

Peo­ple had dif­fer­ent agen­das, the Local Imam Bashir Uddin Mehmud & his son came to intro­duce him­self and the local Ahmadiyya Mus­lim Com­mu­nity to the con­gress­woman while Robert Landry had a ques­tion con­cern­ing film-​making in Devens. Both were inter­ested in a local con­gres­sional office in the city.

The Press was well rep­re­sented, the Worces­ter Telegram and the Sen­tinel & Enter­prise were both there talk­ing to both vot­ers and Con­gress­woman Tsongas. When the event was over the Con­gress­woman gave me a few min­utes of her time.

She did say she would be doing town halls both stan­dard and electronic.

Her aides were very coop­er­a­tive (one is a HUGE Dr. Who fan) and the Con­gress­woman took some time to speak to me as she left. As one of her con­stituents I stressed cut­ting spend­ing first on the budget.

I’m sure over the next two years we will be dis­agree­ing a lot and I’ll be call­ing her on those dis­agree­ments but as for this event, I think it was a proper use of her time. There is no more impor­tant thing a mem­ber of con­gress can do than meet with the peo­ple who elect them.