Last Friday, Feb. 8, in Milton-Freewater, I was privileged to see and attend a community meeting in which Rep. Greg Smith demonstrated, by personal actions, to me and Im sure to others, the stellar community event of my 50-plus years of political and community awareness. What Rep. Smith did is well worth reporting and holding up to other elected and appointed officials as an important aspect of public service leadership.

Situation: In the last year or so, in the M-F area, there has been a vicious murder and an unrelated vicious, in-home assault on an elderly woman. This is in the backdrop of many, many crimes being committed in the city and in the countryside. Lack of quick response by law enforcement and holding in jail, adjudication and prosecution have greatly frustrated the local citizenry. It was evident in the primary election forums for county sheriff that personal security and public safety are the biggest law enforcement concerns of our citizens. The in-home assault was the tipping point. Two young, very adult women got Rep. Smiths attention. You stopped what you were doing and quickly made a couple of home visits. From that, within days, the women and you put together a community meeting on public safety. At that meeting, state, county and city government, relevant special interest groups, four news media outlets and the public were in attendance a standing-room-only group of about 200 people. Rep. Smith emceed the event. With no formal agenda and no speeches, but Rep. Smith kept good order. Smith brought no undue attention to himself, gave honor to all resource speakers and the public. It could have been ugly. It was not. It was helpful.

There were many positive things learned, decided and committed to by many. A major consequence was a better understanding of the roles and recources of the various law enforcement and adjudication officers in the county. We also learned what citizens can and cannot do to protect themselves and the possible consequenses thereof. A big lesson was what citizens can do together to protect themselves and work with law enforcement.

This was just the beginning of many upcoming community actions. It took many people representing many roles to pull this off. However, without Rep. Smiths quick, caring, timely and skillful action, this would not have come off as well as it did. Thank you!