State Senator Jerry Behn of Senate District 24 and State Representative Chip Baltimore of House District 47 will be at the Pizza Ranch in Jefferson tomorrow.

It is an open, non-formal time for citizens to listen to their state legislators and voice their opinions and questions about state topics.  In the past, both legislators start by updating people on current topics and possible hot button issues from the State Capitol for about 20-30 minutes and then open the floor for questions from the public.

Representative Baltimore says that people who attend these open format discussions usually have concerns about how the state legislators are handling their questions and want to learn about information from the state level.  He likes getting questions from the public because it tells him what people are paying attention to because ultimately that’s what politicians do is work for the people.

Both Senator Behn and Representative Baltimore have no prior knowledge of the questions from the public and so that’s one interesting aspect is how they react.  Baltimore says that there are so many bills and pieces of legislation at the Capitol that sometimes you have to jump around and learn as much as you can about one topic but no one can possibly know everything, which is why they have these discussions.  If they don’t know an answer at that moment, they will take your questions and bring them back to the Capitol and learn about those topics.

The open forum meeting takes place tomorrow from noon to 1pm at the Pizza Ranch in Jefferson.