City Club Missoula – The ‘Public’ in Politics

Tables of city clubbers talk over legislative issues while Brown and Ellingson wait in the background for a grilling.
What a heartening and simultaneously disappointing evening at the City Club Missoula meeting tonight. The night featured two state legislators and was billed as a meeting to dissect the impacts and effects of the 2005 Legislative session.

I say heartening because the mission of the City Club is noble and just: “to inform and inspire citizens on issues vital to the Missoula area community through public forums that encourage new ideas.” And sitting here, it’s apparent that this kind of forum serves that mission well. I sat back to write as I watched tables full of Missoulians combine their ideas, complaints and concerns and I saw them scrawling on tablets, laughing and engaging themselves both with big, important issues and with each other at the same time.

I say disappointing because I came expecting a better showing from the Legislators on hand. Both Republican Rep. Roy Brown and Democratic Sen. John Ellingson have long gained my respect. When I covered the Legislature, I could nearly always count on straight speak from both. But tonight, I was chagrined to hear the same accusations and back-and-forth bickering about the appropriations bill. It seemed Brown was picking the battles, but Ellingson was shooting right back when perhaps it would have been better for both to talk the bottom line with a group of citizens smart enough to smell campaigning a mile away.

By Courtney Lowery

Full Story: http://www.newwest.net/index.php/city/article/1760/C8/L8

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Next City Club Missoula Gathering:

City Club Missoula – John Wall Of Palmerston North, New Zealand Sister City Committee, 6/24, Missoula http://www.matr.net/article-14708.html

Hope to see you there.

More about City Club Missoula http://www.matr.net/news.phtml?cat_id=45&catlabel=City+Club+Missoula