A local State Representative held a routine public forum in Adel this past weekend but the event turned out to be much more dramatic than he anticipated.

District 19 State Representative Ralph Watts of Adel says lawmakers hold these events to give the public a chance to visit with them and express their concerns.  Watts says other forums have attracted as few as four people but Saturday’s event at the Adel Public Library had around 60 people in attendance.

The two primary topics of discussion during the roughly 75 minute discussion were what is being called the “Planned Parenthood” bill that has been passed in the Senate and collective bargaining.

Watts says the whole atmosphere was chaotic.

“There’s a lot of activism out there and it’s under the guise of being a democracy.  I heard several people come in and shout ‘This is what democracy looks like’ and I thought no, this isn’t what democracy looks like, this looks like mobocracy.  Of the 60 people there there were probably 30 of them who would just talk over each other and shout at me and conflicting discussions were going on.  It really got kind of chaotic there a few times and that’s really unfortunate.”

At the forum, which was caught on tape by an attendee and later shared on social media, Watts was accused of referring to his former opponent by a derogatory term and laughing at a comment about abortion.  He will explain what happened from his perspective on today’s Perry Fareway Let’s Talk Dallas County program.