Meet the Legislators Tonight at the Grand Williston

Williston, ND (KEYZ)  You've gone ahead and elected them.  Now come out tonight and meet them and give them your marching orders.   Don't miss  Meet your Legislators, at the Grand Williston Hotel and Conference Center starting at 5:30. Mayor Howard Klug says when we send representatives down to Bismarck, they should be fully prepared to fight for our interests, and part of their arsenal is public input.

"We, as elected leaders can talk them all we want, but the real ideas for bills that need to go through the session come the people who are affected. Whether it's education, whether it's a farm issue, or if it's a representative of the oil industry," says Klug.

Districts 1, 2, 4 and 39 will be represented today by lawmakers who find it easier to make an argument for a constituency when that constituency is more than just people in the abstract. But real people with faces and names. That's why getting to know you sessions like today's events are just as important for our local legislators as it is for us.

"When you send people down to Bismarck they have to have the feeling, they have to feel the pulse of what the people out here need. This event is put on by an economic development group that stretches from Stanley to Watford City, to the Montana state line and up to Crosby, and all of those folks are banding together to make sure this is the strongest region in the state," he says.

It's a refresher course for both citizen and politician about who they are working for and what issues are worth fighting for, whether it be hub city funding, transportation and infrastructure, education or mental health.