Bob Latta Visits His Donors, Not Constituents

Recently, The Daily Chief-Union had a front page article about our U.S. Representative, Bob Latta (OH-5), and talked about how he met with Kalmbach Feeds CEO Paul Kalmbach and his Republican friendly organization, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) in Wyandot County. What a pleasure, right? To see our representative in the community is certainly news.

However, did anyone from Bob Latta’s staff let the public know he was going to be in town? How about a public schedule of events for Bob? Or how about a email or phone call to constituents about his visit? Nope. I haven't heard and I’m on his email list.

So what exactly is the deal here? Well it turns out that Bob Latta’s meeting with Kalmbach and the NAM wasn't just happenstance. They’ve got history together. For Paul Kalmbach its about $23,000 in history since Bob Latta started running for office in 2007. For the NAM, it’s $15,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee who funds republicans all over the nation with their election needs. Bob happens to be one of them.

Now I’m not one to judge on campaign fundraising. Even if campaign finance were fairer, its still an expensive endeavor to run a campaign. There's a big problem though if a politician gets big money from donors and then visits those donors for opinion and advertisement while at the same time, they refuse to hold an open town hall or post a public schedule of events. That is exactly what Bob Latta does.

What should we take away from Bob Latta’s actions and record then? Well it should be obvious at this point that if you are just a regular Joe or Jane in Wyandot county then you don’t matter to Bob. Not enough for him to hold any open events for ya. And don’t send me emails about his “office” visits once or twice a year at the Courthouse. He doesn't advertise those either and they are always on a weekday morning when people are at work. Bob hasn't held anything resembling an open town hall or forum since 2010. Are Wyandot County folks just mean people or do we smell?

No, Bob has standards and regular Wyandot County residents just don’t meet them. I certainly can’t afford to donate $2,300 like Paul and Cheryl Kalmbach have on average for Bob Latta’s campaign. Can you? I doubt it, but that's what it takes to get our representative to come to town and hear our concerns. What a sad state of politics we live in, wouldn't you agree? When constituents have to learn about their representatives involvement in their community from the paper or, as in my case, Bob Latta’s Instagram feed.

I humbly ask that Bob Latta commit to holding a open town hall so that we all can have the same opportunity as the folks who give him campaign cash in the thousands. I guess we'll see if he cares.

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