Local legislative town hall meetings to continue

FILE PHOTO - The Utah State Capitol is viewed Monday, Jan. 25, 2016, in Salt Lake City. Utah lawmakers kick off their 45-day legislative session Monday with an endless stream of budget meetings and little bit of pomp and circumstance before diving deep into hundreds of bills. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Once again this year Utah’s lawmakers held a town meeting each Saturday morning while the Utah legislature was in session to discuss with the public issues being discussed at the legislature and to get input from those attending.

State Senator Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, says these sessions have been so successful it has been decided to hold public meetings all year round. He says the first for the summer will be on Wednesday, May 18 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Cache County Hall of Justice Council Chambers.

Hillyard says the issue up for discussion at the first town meeting will be medical marijuana.

“And it’s not geared to be a lobbying thing, where we’ll lobby the public or the public will lobby us,” says Hillyard. “We want to get some experts in, some who support making it legal, some who oppose it, then have a public discussion where people can ask questions about it.

“What I hope it does is illustrate that many of the issues at the state legislature are not black and white.”

He says there are ramifications in every decision the legislature makes.

Hillyard says some of the later discussions could deal with such issues as roads and funding for public education.

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