'Town hall' ignored participants' questions

Being a dutiful independent voter, I went to the Listening Tour conducted by Sen. DeWitte on Nov. 17. Also present were Senators McConchie and Rezin It was billed as an opportunity to gain a better understanding of the issues we, as constituents, faced. Now, being a veteran of these "town halls," I know that the audience will do more listening than talking. I usually figure if it's a 60/40 split (60 being the politicians), it is a successful town hall. But out of a two-hour event, less than 10 minutes actually had an audience member speak. That included the ethically questionable three-minute promotion of a political candidate from Rockford by Sen. DeWitte.

Our questions were written down before the event, and they were read by an assistant. This was not unusual as it is normal to have questions screened for inappropriate or irrelevant content. However, it was interesting there were only three questions that appeared to have relevance to social needs.

I wrote three such questions. 1) "Prepandemic there were numerous options for child care or senior care but now not so many options exist. What can be done to reconstruct this element for our economy? 2) For decades street gangs infiltrated our jails and police department and now we see right-wing militia have followed suit. What can we do to filter out these destructive elements? 3) Illinois tax codes have not had any significant revision in decades other than tax rates. Can we expect such an effort and would this help with the state's deficit?

Only one of those questions was posed to the panel (child care), and Sen. Rezin answered with an incomplete understanding of the issue and thought tax credits for parents paying for child care would rebuild the services. I don't think so. Overall, it was a complaint session about Democrats.

James Dixon

Lake in the Hills