(Havre) – On Wednesday September 27th, MT Democratic Legislative Listening Tour will be holding a panel at the Havre Eagles Club at 6 pm. Montana Representative Mary Caferro talks about the tour.
“The democrat legislative leadership is on a statewide listening tour, and we are going out to all areas of the state with a focus on rural areas and in particular small towns and the goal of the legislative listening tour is to listen to the ideas, the hopes the criticism, the dreams of everyday Montanans and make ourselves available to them. We are not there to have campaign event. When we vote 90% of the bills, we vote on have statewide impact and so it’s really important to communicate how much we care A. and B. to be able to have our votes informed by people from all parts of the state.”
She went on to talk about what they had heard from Montana so far during their tour.
“There are local tidbits that are specific to that area and then there are general themes from all across the state at every listening session which is pretty amazing. And I’ll start with the preservation of our outdoor heritage making sure that our outdoor heritage that that is made available to everyday Montanans and then the other issue that is statewide is the lack of services for senior citizens. along with that are mental health community services, suicide, access to farming. But as you can imagine the number one issue is property tax increases. That is scary and tragic, and we hear about that the most.”
She continued by talking about who will be on the tour.
“Who’s on the legislative listening tour is the senate democratic leader Pat Flowers and then the house democratic leader Kim Abbott so the leadership form the legislature and then I am the vice chair of the budget committee in the house and so I fill in for when other people can’t be there. and then local legislators so example representative Paul Tuss who’s also on the appropriations committee. Representative Paul Tuss will be attending the listening session in Havre and he will make himself available for questions and I know he is so excited to hear from people in his community.”
She finished by talking about how to leave a comment remotely.
“What we have set up is a specific email address so that people can contact us and then I have my phone number on all of the announcements so people can call me. the Email is listeningtour@montanademocrates.org, again that’s listeningtour@montanademocrates.org, and my phone number is (406) 461-2384 I welcome the input.”
