About 75 people gathered for a town hall event in Salina Saturday afternoon.
Among those who attended the “Town Hall in the Heartland” were Kansas Senate Minority Leader Cindy Holscher, who represents Senate District 8 in the Kansas City Area. Not in attendance were any of the Salina area legislators including, U.S. Rep.Tracy Mann, State Senator JR Claeys, and State Reps. Clarke Sanders and Steven Howe.
The town hall event was organized be group called Salina Indivisible. Shannon Jones is one of the organizers of the group. She told KSAL News the grass-roots non-partisan group formed in January.
Jones says all of the area legislators were invited. Steven Howe and Tracy Mann declined to attend. Clarke Sanders and JR Claeys did not reply to multiple attempts to contact them.
Jones says the organization established some rules to make the event non-adversarial for the legislators. Still, it was only a legislator from Johnson County who made a nearly three hour drive to attend.
Tammy Wellbrock-Talley is also one of the organizers of Salina Indivisible. She told KSAL News it was disappointing that none of the Salina legislators attended.
Senator Holscher agreed that is was disappointing that not a single Salina area legislator attended the town hall in their own community. She told KSAL News that leadership is about listening to constituents, no matter if you agree with their viewpoints or not.
At the event, Holscher provided an abbreviated recap of the legislative session, and then addressed concerns she has moving forward, including a super majority in the Kansas Legislature and the upcoming gubernatorial election that could swing the balance of power in Kansas government.
Also speaking at the event was Justin Smith from KNEA and deputy director of the Saline County Health Department Candice Sauers.
In between the three guest speakers, citizens also spoke, voicing concerns. The youngest speaker was a 17-year-student, the oldest a senior citizen.
While the Salina area legislators were not at the event in person, they were not forgotten. Large photos of them draped four empty chairs.
