Congressman Darin LaHood spoke to the Jacksonville Area Chamber of Commerce yesterday at Pathways on Morton Avenue. The Congressman was originally scheduled to speak in the Chamber meeting room but the venue was changed at the last minute.
Lisa Musch, President of the Jacksonville Area Chamber of Commerce, explains why the Congressman’s speech was moved from the meeting room.
“We were fortunate to have such a great response from our membership for attendance, over 50 people, that we changed the venue because our room there at the chamber will not hold 50 people. Truthfully we probably don’t have 50 chairs. We were also concerned about parking, the lot there is small. That was the reason, just the great attendance.”
Brad Stotler, District Director for Congressman LaHood told WLDS news that the congressman’s speech was a closed event. Conressman LaHood says the event was hosted by the Chamber and they were following their rules.
“When we hold events, we do it at our office, they are our events. This was set up by the Chamber. It was their venue, their rules, their set up. They are the ones who did it. We took our cue from the Chamber on that. There was no other media there either. You’d have to ask Lisa on why that was done.”
Musch says the Chamber was instructed to let the congressman’s communications people handle the media.
“That was what the congressman had instructed us, that the media would be handled by the communications people, so I turned all of that over to their communications people.”
Congressman LaHood will return to Washington next week.