Dear Oxford Eagle Editorial Board,

Thank you for the kind words about our Listening Sessions in your Editorial Board column of Sunday, March 19th, titled, “Community forums are very useful.” The Lafayette County Democratic Party is pleased that 200 local citizens came to voice their concerns. An engaged populace creates a dynamic and healthy community! As reported, issues of concern ranged from national ones like healthcare, to local issues like education, zoning and infrastructure. We summarized the results from these sessions and posted them on our new website, lafayettedems.org (under the “News” tab).

We responded to the concerns voiced in the Listening Sessions with plans for public meetings to address the major concerns that were raised.  One of the public meetings planned was to address healthcare, since the GOP’s proposed replacement for the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) would have stripped 71,000 citizens in Mississippi’s 1st Congressional District of their insurance! That meeting has been postponed (after the recent failure to quickly overturn the existing law), but will be rescheduled soon to offer information and discussion about healthcare programs proposed for our citizens.

Our Voting Rights committee is working with the non-partisan Mississippi Votes (msvotes.org) to canvass every door in Lafayette County this summer, to register and educate voters about their rights. We would love to have anyone join us in this mission! Interested parties can sign up on our website, or message us through our Facebook page, facebook.com/LafayetteCoDems.

Thank you again,

Cristen Hemmins

Lafayette County Dems Chair