Kosmas dodges face to face with constituents by using Tele-Town meeting

I just got off the phone with Rep. Kosmas' office in Port Orange. No conventional face to face town hall meetings for US.

Instead, her constituents get

1. A Tele-Town Hall telephone conference
2. no date specified yet
3. The Kosmas staff will let people know when-where-how info by "robocalls" in the 48 hours prior to the conference call.
4. They will also let people know when-where-how info by email in the 48 hours prior to the conference call.
5. The staff member answering the call could not refer me to a spec sheet on how Tele-Town Hall works.
6. Instead she referred me to Kosmas press-sec. Marc Goldberg, 202-225-2706 up in D.C.
7. Why no conventional town hall face to face meeting? According to the staff member, Kosmas excused her own absence because holding six town-halls in one month was logistically impossible
8. and that telecom is more equitable.

I do not view this excuse as credible. She makes plenty of campaign stops when she has to. But now that she has our vote, she is just not that into us: face to face is not logistically practical.

Sounds as dim as that boss in the film Office Space.

I decided to go ahead and do about 30 seconds of digging about Tele-Town Hall.

Apparently one needs to obtain the "Control Sheet" with codes etc.

How Tele-Town Hall Works

On the day of your event, you will receive a Control Sheet with detailed instructions for conducting your Tele-Town Hall. The Control Sheet will include a unique ID and password for you to login to a simple web interface used to control the event through your web browser (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox). In addition, the Control Sheet will provide you with the contact information for your operator, the member of the Tele-Town Hall staff who is assigned to initiate the dialing process and monitor your event. When the event begins, our system will dial out to the list of households you submit...

So if Kosmas does not want you on her list of people permitted to speak to her, you are S.O.L. That does not seem very open or inclusive.

A phone call to the Kosmas hotline, 877-956-7627, got me to Vinny, in Orlando. Very courteous lad, same basic information.