Earlier this month, I organized a Citizen's Town Hall where people from Woodbridge and the surrounding area could come and discuss the issues to be addressed in Hartford this year. It was a nice, informal little gathering with about a dozen people showing up, including people from the League of Women Voters and State Rep. Lezlye Zupkus and others. We talked about how there have been other gatherings like this, sponsored by the league and other groups and how we thought it would be good to continue meeting like this. We briefly introduced ourselves and talked a little bit about the issues we hoped to see addressed in Hartford. We agreed to meet again on Thursday, Feb 7th at 6:30 PM, again at Wheeler's Market-Cafe in Woodbridge.

Since then, Rep. Zupkus has announced that she will be holding a town hall in Bethany on Tuesday, January 29th at 6:30 PM. State Rep. Themis Klarides announced that she would be participating in that town hall.

I also received an email from Rep. Brandon McGee that he will be holding four town halls in his district between January 22nd and Feb 13th. It is great to see more opportunities for people to come together and address issues in Hartford.

On top of this, several people have been sharing various bills that have been introduced in Hartford via Facebook, creating a sort of virtual town hall. One person posted a link to AN ACT PROVIDING FREE ADMISSION TO AND PARKING AT STATE PARKS FOR CONNECTICUT VETERANS and another posted a link to AN ACT CONCERNING A SINGLE-PAYER HEALTH CARE SYSTEM, introduced by State Senator Joe Crisco from Woodbridge.

I've also set up a Facebook Interest Group of state legislators that I am friends of or who have publicly accessible Facebook Pages that I've found. You can see what some of the State Legislators are up to on the list.

It seems like this could be a good year for discussing what goes on in the Connecticut General Assembly, and I hope many people participate.