Where's the proof of legislators' invitations?

On the front page of your Sunday edition dated July 21, 2019, you printed a notice of a meeting to be sponsored by Reclaim Idaho on Tuesday, July 23, 2019, at the Sandpoint Community Center. The topic of the meeting would be about the citizen initiative process in Idaho. The notice, (presumably a press release from Reclaim Idaho) stated that Sen. Jim Woodward, Rep. Heather Scott, and Rep. Sage Dixon, had been invited to the meeting. When the meeting began, the moderator told the audience that our state representatives had been invited. Prior to the meeting, I contacted Rep. Dixon and asked if he had been invited. He stated that he had not. A friend of mine contacted Rep. Scott by email to ask if she had been invited. She replied that she had not. When Sen. Woodward arrived at the meeting, I asked him if he had been invited. He told me that he had seen a link to a FaceBook page where he saw the invitation. He later told another friend of mine that he did not receive a written invitation in the mail, nor did he receive a follow-up email.

During the meeting, Reclaim Idaho member Daniel Radford told the audience that “Dixon the chicken” and others failed to show up because “they are afraid of us.” When I informed him that Rep. Dixon had not been invited, the communications director for Reclaim Idaho responded by stating to me, “sir, he was invited.” Writing in an editorial in the Coeur d’Alene Press on July 31, 2019, Daniel Radford again criticized Rep. Dixon for not appearing at the meeting. He again referred to Rep. Dixon as “Dixon the chicken,” as well as encouraging readers to call, write, and “give him a piece of your mind at the Bonner County Fair.”

In social media exchanges with Reclaim Idaho members, I have been told that formal letters of invitation were sent out to all three state representatives. None of the representatives received the letters. I was told that follow-up emails were sent to all three representatives. None of the representatives received such an email. I have repeatedly asked for copies of the letters, copies of the emails, and a screen shot of the FaceBook invitation sent to Sen. Woodward. As of this time, none of these items of proof have been provided to me.

Is it possible that all three postal invitations were lost in the mail? Is it possible that all three emails never reached our representatives? Is it possible that all three of our representatives are not being truthful about receiving the invitations? Is it possible that Reclaim Idaho did not send invitations to our representatives? I will leave the answers to these questions for your readers to decide.

In the meantime, I will continue to seek the truth, however, that will require the cooperation of Reclaim Idaho.

JIM KELLY

Sandpoint