NORWICH – Congressman Anthony Brindisi met with members of the public last night and spoke about a variety of topics including minimum wage standards, decreasing volunteer firefighter numbers, and legalization of marijuana.

Brindisi’s open town hall meeting started at 6 p.m. on Wednesday at Stanford J. Gibson Primary School in Norwich.

The event was free to attend, and the auditorium seats were packed with supporters and citizens from Chenango County with questions about national and local issues, and what congress can do to help.

One concern discussed at the event was Chenango County’s poverty level.

“Many people only have bicycles and lawn-tractors as modes of transportation,” said the concerned citizen. “Every city in this county has people who need help.”

Brindisi said the concerned citizen raised an excellent point that comes back to the need for raising minimum wage.

“You bring up a great point, and there’s lots of debate right now in the House of Representatives because there’s a bill that’s working its way through to raise the federal minimum wage,” said Brindisi. “Which is something I believe needs to happen.”

The challenge is different regions of the country have different economics, he said.

“You have a lot of businesses or not-for-profits, or farms that can’t really control their costs because they may be dependent on reimbursements from the state or Medicaid,” said Brindisi. “If you’re a dairy farmer you’re subject to federal milk pricing guidelines, if you’re in a hospital you’re subject to Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement so when the minimum wage goes up and you have to pay more.

“When you have to pay your workers more, you can’t just raise the price of your service to cover that cost.”

He said the small “mom and pop” businesses that you might find on a city’s main street are especially susceptible to increasing prices to cover for minimum wage increase costs, but he advised against doing so.