Check out Paulmichael's interivew with Bill, Kerry, and Gina on x96 Radio from Hell. They discuss John Curtis' lack of initiative engaging his constituents, the 5 Calls app, and Curtis' upcoming town hall hosted by UAC with or without him.
Interview Transcript
Bill: All right, we have a guest in the studio. It is Paulmichael Maxfield. Hello Paulmichael.
Paulmichael Maxfield: Hello. Thanks for having me on.
Bill: He's with the Utah Alliance Coalition. Paulmichael's been on our show several times for various reasons. That's right but you've decided to take matters into your own hands and organize a health care town hall with Senator John Curtis, but without him even being well-
Gina: He's invited.
Bill: Tell us what you've done here.
Paulmichael Maxfield: Yeah, that he is absolutely welcome. We hope he'll be able to attend. So I work for the Utah Alliance Coalition. It's an organization that holds elected officials accountable at all levels of government. And today I'm here to talk about the health care town hall with Senator John Curtis. So this event is gonna take place this Thursday March 20th at 7 p.m at the downtown library auditorium. And if you have a question for Senator Curtis come to the town hall. You know in the larger the crowd the louder our message will be Is he going to be at the town hall? We hope so we hope so If he doesn't show up, you know, we'll run the town hall without him Okay, yeah, and and this won't be our last town hall. We'll continue to spotlight Senator John Curtis's absence into until he fulfills his campaign promises that he made to his constituents about holding town hall meetings consistently.
Bill: He hasn't done one for a long time.
Paulmichael Maxifield: No, not at all and and it's really surprising to me, you know, like Senator Curtis said in his campaign release on constituent outreach and I quote here, "I Promise to always be accessible by holding town hall meetings consistently. I remain connected to the issues that matter most to people of Utah. Your feedback directly shapes my work in Washington." So, you know my question is Senator John Curtis, where are the town halls? It has been 310 days since your last town hall.
Gina: And they're on they're on recess right now, so he should be home.
Kerry: So he's free you've done all the hard work. You got it. You got a venue and and you've set up the sound. You've got it all he has to do is show up.
Paulmichael Maxfield: Show up and answer questions. That's all we're asking him to do.
Bill: You know, Paulmichael, that Senators and Congress people are becoming more and more reticent about appearing at town halls because they get yelled at.
Gina: Well, there you go.
Bill: If you if you want to now assume you've all extended the invitation
Paulmichael Maxifield: That's right we we sent him a formal invitation, and like Gina you said before, we did it during the Senate recess, and this is typically a time where senators go out and meet with their constituents.
Bill: And you have had not had a response?
Paulmichael Maxifield: We have not had a response, but hope burns eternal.
Bill: So it's this Thursday at the downtown Salt Lake library 7 p.m. There's a nice auditorium there. That's 200 people or more Capacity I think yeah, it's yeah, it's pretty it's pretty big. And you want to talk about health care?
Paulmichael Maxifield: Yeah, that's right You know right now our government is undergoing rapid and chaotic changes. Major decisions are being made about the Veterans Administration Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security just to name a few and yet, you know Senator Curtis has not scheduled a single town hall meeting this year.
Bill: Now, there's another thing that you wanted to bring up, and let's talk about this for a second. I've never heard of this. It's the Five Calls app.
Paulmichael Maxifield: That's right. This is the app of my dreams. You know how I know there's a lot of people that want to get involved in politics, want to share their feedback with their elected representatives, but there's all kinds of reasons that's difficult to do. So the Five Calls app made it really, really easy to give feedback to your elected officials. So you can download it on Google Play or the app store, and it automatically connects you with your representatives using your phone's geolocation, and it provides a list of issues that you may want to speak to your rep about. It summarizes those issues for you in a really fair way, and it provides phone scripts. So if you don't know what to say, you can read the phone script and just say that on the line.
Bill: So just download, just go look for the number five.
Paulmichael Maxifield: The number five calls app. It's an app that's a blue square with five white stars.
Bill: Now if people are interested and they want to come to this town hall this Thursday, March 20th, downtown Salt Lake City Library auditorium, you don't have to indicate ahead of time that you're coming. You can just show up, right?
Paulmichael Maxifield: You can show up, absolutely. But we have had a lot of interest in this event, so it would be really helpful to us if folks can go to utahalliancecoalition.org. And right on the landing page, you're going to find information about the town hall and also a link where you can RSVP.
Kerry: Oh, I see, yeah. Just to help you plan a little bit.
Bill: Yeah, just to help us plan. UtahAllianceCoalition.org. And yeah, there it is, right there. And you can find out all kinds of information about that and also about the town hall. Paul Michael, it's nice to see you again. Nice to see you guys. I hope this is successful. I'm going to try and remember to mention it every day leading up to it.
Paulmichael Maxifield: I really appreciate that, Bill.
Kerry: So, do you want to speak to John Curtis? I know he listens to the show. Oh, he loves the bones.
Paulmichael Maxifield: Yeah, I would love to take a moment to talk directly to Senator Curtis. Senator Curtis, you were elected to represent Utah, but how in the hell can you do that without holding a single town hall? Why aren't you traveling around the state explaining your decisions? Makes me wonder if you're ashamed of your record or if you're being bullied.
Well, that could be. We've done the work for you and we promise to treat you with respect. All you have to do is show up and answer questions. That's it.
Bill: Who's going to moderate this?
Paulmichael Maxifield: I will. There you go. Yeah, we have some great speakers as well. We have someone from, as a retired vet, we have someone representing the Latino community. We have someone who's representing the elderly community and is there to talk about Medicare.
We really do have just a great lineup of folks and we'd love to provide an opportunity to hear from the audience and be able to just ask their questions and we can have a nice community discussion.
Bill: Can you assure people that there will be no goons with zip ties there?
Paulmichael Maxifield: Yeah. Yeah.
Bill: No goons with zip ties. Okay. Again, it's Thursday, March 20th, 7 p.m. downtown Salt Lake City Library. It's a Senator John Curtis Town Hall where he may or may not be there, but it's going to go on anyway. All right.
Paulmichael Maxifield: That's right. Thanks, Paul. Thank you. Thanks for having me on.
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