Three hundred people attend Fairfield townhall

FAIRFIELD – About 300 people turned out for a townhall in Fairfield on Saturday, April 5, where attendees expressed their displeasure with the Trump Administration and with U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks.

Organizers of the event said they invited Miller-Meeks to the event, held at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds, but she did not attend. Organizers left a chair open at the front of the Cambridge Learning Center intended for Miller-Meeks, and speakers directed their remarks to the empty chair as if they were speaking to her.

Fairfield resident Bob Ferguson of Jefferson County Iowa Indivisibles said his organization was just one of many to sponsor the event. An email from the group Fairness for Iowa indicated that at least nine organizations co-sponsored it. Sue Dinsdale of Iowa Citizen Action Network moderated the event.

Ferguson said he helped organize the event because he was fed up with a “completely lawless federal administration that is breaking laws right and left, dismantling crucial functions of our government that have nothing to do with waste, fraud and abuse.” He was upset by the recent cuts to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), where his brother was previously director of science and innovation.

“They do great work around the world that saves countless lives,” Ferguson said of USAID. He said the cuts to USAID and other federal programs ordered by the new Department of Government Efficiency are a “careless way to decimate the government so it can’t work.”

Fairfield resident Frank Broz spoke at the event about a federal program whose funding has been canceled known as Local Food for Schools, funded by the United States Department of Agriculture. Broz knew of this program from his tenure on the Fairfield school board from 2017-2021, and was disappointed to learn it was being eliminated.

“The program got completely cut, and it was scheduled to be increased because it had been so successful,” Broz said. “I couldn’t find any explanation of what waste, fraud or abuse could have existed within this program. The most nutritious food that these kids receive throughout the year is fresh produce, dairy and meat through the Local Food for Schools program. On the farm side, this program bumped to the top of the list beginning farmers, veterans, minorities or other farmers who needed a boost to build their farms.”

Iowa State University Extension and Outreach published a progress report on Local Food for Schools in 2023, and noted that the Iowa LFS program created $1.27 million in economic impact in its first year, and that for every dollar spent on local foods, another 94 cents was invested in the local economy.

Broz said the reason he spoke at the townhall was to urge Rep. Miller-Meeks to push for continued funding of programs like Local Food for Schools.

“We don’t expect her to control Elon Musk, but we expect her to stand up for programs that feed kids, help farmers, and stimulate the local economy,” he said.

Ferguson said the townhall lasted 90 minutes, and organizers collected written questions from the audience. He said all cards will be delivered to Miller-Meeks’s office.

According to an email from Fairness for Iowa, the entities that sponsored Saturday’s townhall were: Jefferson County Iowa Indivisibles; Iowa Citizen Action Network; Iowa Federation of Labor AFL-CIO; Fairness For Iowa, Iowa Alliance for Retired Americans, Common Good Iowa, South Central Federation of Labor AFL-CIO, SEIU Iowa, and Lower Drug Prices Now/Health Care for America Now.

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com