Dan of the Community: What strikes me is that as an elected official for more than 20 years I cannot even remotely imagine the circumstance where I or just about any other local elected official I have ever served with would not be willing to be present in person at this kind of a hearing, let alone not even being willing to speak for yourself over a telephone but having to have an attorney speak for you. What kind of accountability and transparency to the public is that? I find it especially ironic in that the attorney is the same one that had me on the stand for almost 8 hours over two days in the Cd'A election contest. I answered for myself and in person. I answered every single question firsthand to the best of my ability and didn't stop until he finally ran out of questions.

Question: Did you find it strange that Rep. Phil Hart didn't attend the House Ethics Committee hearing to defend himself Monday, relying on attorney Starr Kelso instead?