Laying down the law (Town hall meeting rules)

As we entered the auditorium last night, we were all handed a set of rules for the night. General things about playing nice, respecting everyone elses opinion, not leaving your trash behind...the usual. I took a seat a couple of rows back from MDE, Joe Tucci, Kevin (from Eckernet) and frequent commenter J. Ewing. There were half a dozen of my fellow SD35 members in front of me and I saw several others wandering through the hall, so it was nice to know that our district was so involved.

The agenda for the night was as follows:

The town hall is open to discuss ANY subject at all.
The first hour would be for citizens to address COMMENTS to the Congressman
The second hour would be for audience members to ask QUESTIONS
Please follow the rules (an aside - there was no rule about live blogging, however, there was no public WiFi available. Since I don't have an Air Card I had to resort to the archaic practice of taking notes!)
Moderators with microphones would be stationed at both sides of the hall and at the back. Anyone with comments or questions should raise their hand and then move to the mic. Speakers would be taken in order that they were given the mic so whoever was standing the longest would speak first.

Congressman Kline took the stage to a standing ovation and we're off!