KINGSTON, NY — Like hundreds of other representatives across the U.S., Congressman John Faso has decided not to hold any town hall meetings in this time of political turmoil. Not satisfied with that decision, residents of the New York 19th Congressional District held a town hall meeting without the congressman on February 24 at the George Washington Elementary School in Kingston.

More than 700 people turned out to the event, which was organized by the Hudson Valley Chapter of Citizen Action of New York, and another 200 remained outside because of the standing-room-only crowd. Among those in attendance was Kathie Aberman, a retired school teacher from Liberty.

She wrote that three panelists addressed the crowd. One was Kate Breslin, president of the Schuyler Center for Advocacy and Analysis, who spoke about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and how Republican plans to repeal and replace it would negatively impact people, including those on Medicaid.

A second panelist, Emma Kreyche of the Workers’ Justice Center, talked about how the Trump administration has expanded the number of immigrants now subject to deportation.

A third panelist, Roger Down, conservation director of the Sierra Club, talked about the Trump administration’s effort to weaken or abolish the Environmental Protection Agency.

Faso has said that he will meet with people in small groups of six to eight individuals. Asked what benefit there would be for Faso to meet with a much larger group with the media in attendance, Aberman said that when Faso deflects or doesn’t directly answer a question in a large group, he will be challenged and the media will record that, and other residents of the district will have the benefit of that information.

She said, for example, that Faso has indicated that one of the changes to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) may be that the Medicaid portion of the ACA would be changed to a block grant program. In a large crowd, someone would point out that would very likely mean that over time Medicaid recipients would get less funding for health insurance.

Aberman also said Faso’s attitude toward town hall meetings was very disrespectful to his constituents, and people would become more angered the longer Faso maintains that position.

In addressing why she went to the meeting, Aberman wrote, “I have worked for many years for civil rights—my parents were on the right side of history when there was a controversy about integration in the neighborhood where I lived as a child. The deepest lesson they taught me was that you don’t ‘put people in boxes’—of religion, race, nationality, ethnicity, sexual identity (and that was in the ‘50s)—and I have worked toward that ideal all my life. I am proud of the progress that we have made in this country, although there is still much to be done.

“I am dismayed at the attacks on women’s reproductive freedom, especially in other parts of the country, horrified at the verbal and physical attacks on ethnic and sexual minorities, and angry that the environmental protections we have worked so hard for are being overturned, seemingly in the blink of an eye. As the daughter of an old-fashioned ‘family’ doctor who just took care of his patients, whether they had money or not, I am deeply concerned about millions of people losing their health care—and that includes people all over the country as well as my own children. I am watching John Faso vote in lockstep (87% of the time) with the Republican ‘deconstruction of the administrative state agenda,’ and I am angry that he has refused to hold an open public hearing to listen to his constituents and be challenged on his positions, that he only meets people in very closely controlled and monitored situations. I think that is cowardly.”