For the past 3 weeks I have been trying to find out of my Congressman, Michael Grimm NY CD-11, will be having a Town Hall during recess. Every week I've called and last week they told me to call this week and they'll have the information.
Now remember, Congress is on a 5 week recess vacation and during that time they have meetings in their districts to get the opinions of the people they have been elected to serve.
Today when I called I was told by a member of Congressman Grimm's staff that they're "still working on it" but will probably have Town Halls early/mid September after Congress has retuned from their vacations!
This is a copout. Grimm is afraid to meet with members of his district. In 2010 when he met with voters for the 1st time and on the Brooklyn side of his district, he was crucified for his stands on Obamacare, woman's health issues and the wars in Iraq and Afganistan among other Republicon stands. Although he got a better response when he meet with Staten Island voters, it wasn't great either.
Grimm won the seat from Michael McMahon, who was elected in 2008 after the previous Congressman, Vito Fossella, was arrested for drunk driving and and it was discovered he had a 2nd family in the DC area. The SI Republicon Party couldn't get their act together (their 1st selection unfortunately passed away during the early part of the campaign when we were collecting signatures and their 2nd choice was a man with his own ethic issues). McMahon is a blue dog who didn't vote for Obamacare. Pandering to the right and with 2 B.S. reasons he ran a terrible campaign in 2010 and his base didn't show up to vote for him. In 2012 Mark Murphy an aide to Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio (who's now running for Mayor) and who's father was the last Democratic Congressman from the district until he was caught in the ABSCAM sting, had to resign his seat and served time in prison, ran against Grimm. Although Murphy won the Brooklyn side of the district, he was a lackluster candidate who lost on SI where the largest part of the district is situated.
There is already a candidate who is being supported by the DCCC who has announced he's running against Grimm in 2014. His name is Domenic Recchia and he's the current City Councilman from what is part of the district. I have issues with Recchia (but will still vote for him in 2014) but that will be a different Diary so I'm not going to go into them in this Diary.
I know many people who have called Grimm's office about the Town Halls, but if you want to add your 2 cents his numbers are as follows:
Staten Island: 718-351-1062
Brooklyn: 718-630-5277
DC: 202-225-3371
His web site is www.congressmanmichaelgrimm.com