United States Senator Claire McCaskill held a town hall event at the Nodaway County Senior Center on October 10.

Every individual who attended was given an index card and encouraged to write down any questions they might have for her. McCaskill then had a crowd member draw cards out of the basket at random to be answered, stating she wanted the public to know she was willing to answer any question about any topic.

One of the questions McCaskill was asked was why the Nodaway County Senior Center lost one hundred percent of its funding from the Northwest Missouri Area Agency on Aging (AAA) when other centers in the district were not affected.

McCaskill stated she was not aware that the center had lost all of its federal funding. When McCaskill asked what the AAA’s rationale was for taking away the funding, Nodaway County Senior Center Director Amie Firavich replied to her stating, “The Area Agency on Aging took our federal funding away from us starting September 1. They wouldn’t tell us; they said it was done in closed meeting. We really do not know why it was taken away from us. We have asked the question many many times.”

Upon learning that the local center’s funding had been completely cut and that two other centers in the 22-center district had lost funding, rather then have the cuts shared equally among all centers, McCaskill said that was “dumb” and “I’m on it.” McCaskill promised to “get to the bottom of it” and find out what had happened to the funding.

After the town hall meeting, McCaskill spoke to Firavich before getting into her car, assuring her again that she would get answers in writing and would follow-up with Firavich with information that she had learned.

Other topics discussed during the meeting included current events and higher education. When asked how to get the US president out of office, McCaskill responded that he was “duly elected in this country” and stated that she gets up every morning asking how she can fight for her people, not how she can fight with the president.

When asked to defend her choice to vote yes to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, she stated that she voted yes when it was Obama’s request and she “sure wasn’t going to vote no just because President Trump requested it.” She assured voters that she looks at the substance of each issue to cast her vote.

Maryville was McCaskill’s 45th town hall in Missouri this season.