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Last night I attended a town hall meeting held jointly by my state senator, Sen. Dan Liljenquist; my state representative, Rep. Becky Edwards; and the neighboring district representative in Bountiful, Rep. Sheryl Allen. I came away from that meeting with a number of impressions that I will be sharing in the coming days, but the one I wanted to share first was what a good example Sen. Liljenquist was of a legislator as a communicator, specifically in communicating with his constituents on an important issue.
Almost as soon as the meeting was opened up for comments and questions from those in attendance it became very clear that a majority of the people there were public employees who were not very thrilled with the work that Sen. Liljenquist has been doing to change the pension program for state employees. They expressed their disappointment with the directions he was going and their concerns with the future ramifications of the changes the he is advocating.
He listened calmly over and over but as he spoke it was very evident that he had put a major investment of time and energy to arrive at the best available solution. He politely but decisively explained why the changes were necessary and what he was doing to protect current employees and the fiscal future of the state.
I don’t know if many people at the meeting were swayed as he spoke, but I very much respected how he tackled this difficult issue head on and did not bend to the myopic perspective of some vocal constituents by choosing the irresponsible option of punting the decision to the future.
