Brighton – Angela Darraga of Lochbuie had stopped by the Safeway here Saturday morning to pick up a few things when she found her congressman, Ed Perlmutter, sitting in the floral department.
Perlmutter, a Democrat from Golden, sat there with notepad in hand ready to address constituents’ concerns.
“You never know what you’re going to run into at the grocery store,” Darraga said. “I wouldn’t have known this was going on if I didn’t need some groceries.”
This was the third of Perlmutter’s “Government in the Grocery Store” events, a program that he says helps him reach constituents in their daily lives.
“This gives me a chance to keep my feet on the ground and not be separated in D.C.,” Perlmutter said.
Perlmutter, who is a freshman and part of the Democratic takeover of Congress, held similar meetings in Wheat Ridge and Aurora.
For Darraga, 60, the chance encounter offered her an opportunity to ask questions about health care.
She walked with the aid of a cane because of a broken ankle and had questions about lowering prescription drug costs for seniors.
“Medicine is so jolly high, if you’re on a fixed income, you can’t get it,” she said. “I just wonder who we’re going to be 10 years from now.”
Ray Kniss and his son Josh arrived at the store with the goal of talking to the congressman about an Air Force Academy appointment for Josh, a junior at Brighton High School.
A plant manager and sales representative with a farm in Brighton, Ray Kniss said he didn’t have partisan views but also wanted practical answers for a workable immigrant guest-worker program.
“I work for Sakata farms, and labor is a huge issue for us,” he said. “What’s going to happen here if we don’t have labor to do what the company does?”
Other shoppers voiced concerns over issues as varied as treatment of veterans, the budget deficit and trucking insurance.
“So many subjects touch so many lives, it’s pretty eye-opening,” Perlmutter said, and rattled off a list of concerns his constituents have contacted him about, ranging from cancer care to homeland security.
Returning to Colorado, Perlmutter said, gives him the chance to meet people where they are and not make them come to him.
At the Brighton store, Perlmutter ran into old friends, including his cousin Howard Reinstein, a deputy county attorney with Adams County.
Comparing himself to Colorado’s newly elected governor, Bill Ritter, Perlmutter quipped:
“You know, Bill Ritter has lots of brothers and sisters; well, I have a lot of cousins all around here.”
Staff writer Gabriela Resto-Montero can be reached at 303-954-1638 or grestomontero@denverpost.com.
