After Protest Demanding Town Hall-Style Meeting, Lalota Schedules Call-in Session, Claiming It’s His ’21st Town Hall’ Since Taking Office

U.S. Representative Nick LaLota was scheduled to hold a telephone town hall meeting on Wednesday at 6 p.m.

The tele-town hall meeting was announced on February 20 after hundreds of residents demonstrated outside his district office in Hauppauge on Presidents Day to demand a public, in-person town hall meeting.

LaLota has not held that type of meeting since taking office in January 2023. He has held four prior telephone town hall meetings, during which people call in with questions and comments.

Members of Congress who held in-person town hall meetings during Presidents Week, while Congress was not in session, have found themselves confronted by angry constituents upset by massive cuts to staffing in federal agencies, potential cuts to Medicaid and other social safety net programs and other actions taken by the Trump administration since January 20. Members were often booed and shouted down by the audience.

LaLota, who in a press release criticized the protesters for using vitriolic language and divisive tactics, such as displaying “hateful and inappropriate signs,” said he is holding a telephone town hall because, “I believe in addressing issues with respect and dignity.”

The congressman is calling Wednesday night’s telephone town hall his “21st town hall.” A map published on LaLota’s Facebook and Instagram pages shows dates and places of the prior “town hall” meetings. It includes his four prior telephone town halls (April 19, June 12 and July 26, 2023 and May 7, 2024) and 16 appearances at a variety of meetings with businesses and organizations that were not advertised as “town hall” meetings or, generally, meetings open to the public outside of members of the groups hosting the meetings.

Some of the meetings listed on the map required the purchase of tickets to attend them: an out-of-district appearance at a defense industry trade group event in Garden City and a networking event held by the Westhampton Beach Chamber of Commerce, for example.

Another event listed on the map as a “town hall,” was a tour and meeting with staff at a Huntington defense industry supplier, according LaLota’s own press release issued on the date of the event.

After the Presidents Day demonstration outside his Hauppauge office, LaLota’s office invited the five groups that organized the demonstration — Long Island Network for Change, Suffolk Progressives, and LI Activists, Long Island Progressive Coalition and Progressive East End Reformers — to a private meeting, according to a press release from LaLota’s office issued February 20. The invitation provided 24 hours notice of the proposed meeting, the press release said, but three of the groups declined and two did not respond.

The organizations said in a statement they rejected an invitation to “a brief closed door meeting during a work day on less than 24 hours notice” and renewed their demand for an in-person, public town hall to answer constituent questions and concerns “around the unprecedented actions of Elon Musk and the Trump Administration.

“At this unprecedented moment, it is imperative that the congressman hear the voices of as wide an array of constituents as possible, not just those pre-selected for a private meeting or a carefully scripted virtual town hall,” the joint statement said.

To participate in LaLota’s March 5 tele-town hall meeting, sign up at lalota.house.gov/townhall. Interested participants must sign up at least one hour prior to the scheduled start of the meeting in order to join the meeting.

LaLota’s office said in a press release last week he expects more than 10,000 constituents to joint the call.

This article appeared on RiverheadLocal, and is republished here with permission—Ed.