By Judith Roberts
About 150 concerned citizens gathered at the Lincoln Parish Library Tuesday night to let their voices be heard at the Empty Chair Town Hall.
Four chairs sat on the stage in the Library Events Center with large pictures of four elected officials representing north Louisiana in some capacity: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, U.S. Representative Julia Letlow, U.S. Senator John Kennedy and U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy.
The event was organized by Indivisible.La and 10,000 Women Louisiana and was an effort for citizens to ask questions and express concerns.
“We see our job as to capture that information and go back and share that with the staffs of our elected officials,” said Melissa Flournoy, board chair for 10,000 Women Louisiana. “The citizens of the Ruston area are coming out to make their voices heard and tell us their concerns about what’s going on with the federal government.”
Flournoy and Indivisible.La volunteer organizer Paula Stinson said they had reached out to the officials’ offices to ask them to attend – and they did receive responses.
“These citizens have been asking for town halls. Senator Kennedy said, ‘Have them call someone who cares,’” Stinson said. “And (Speaker) Johnson said, ‘Do not have any town halls. Do not talk to these people.’ Well, we’re here to talk to them. We’re doing letter writing campaigns, we’re doing video letters that we’re going to send to them. There is a lot of anger, and our officials are voting for everything, but they’re not listening to us and hearing the pain that what they’re voting for is going to cause people.”
Community members Joel and Kelly Sharpton offered to film citizens to have videos to send to elected officials.
“Joel is an audio and video producer, so he is recording interviews for people that will be sent directly to the representatives,” Kelly Sharpton said. “We want to get everybody’s story and everybody’s comments.”
Stinson said she was excited to see parents bringing their children and grandparents also attending the event.
“We’ve got generations of folks here tonight because of the cuts to the education department,” she said. “If your child has an IEP or funding for bus transportation or funding for the food program – in a rural area like this, a lot of the federal money helped shore up the school system. If you eliminate the Department of Education, the state of Louisiana doesn’t have extra money to fill that gap.
“This is really a dismantling of government, and it’s going to disrupt the lives of families across the state.”
Flournoy added that many individuals were concerned about Social Security, as it was announced the Trump administration announced the firings of several Social Security customer service employees and the closure of more than half the regional offices around the country.
“So if you’re poor, if you’re disabled, if you don’t do technology very well, you’re out of luck,” she said. “You’re not going to get help with your benefits.”
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