Fresh from the CNN debate the night before in Des Moines, candidate for the Democrat nomination for president Mayor Pete Buttigieg was met by more than 100 area residents at a meet and greet event at the Otter Creek Lake and Park Nature Center northeast of Toledo on Wednesday afternoon, Jan. 15. Buttigieg, in an appeal for support in the upcoming Feb. 3 Iowa caucus, said he recognized “how Iowa voters take the caucuses seriously and that responsibility and that power.” “Now I’m looking into the eyes of the people who say “you look good, your’re in my top seven,” Buttigieg said in appealing for their support in the caucus. He touched upon a number of his campaign themes calling for action” on climate- “We can’t wait we have to act now,” tax system- “You paid more in taxes than Amazon and Chevron did last year, and they made billions,” Luis Avalos, a 10th grade student at South Tama High School asked,“Immigration is very important to me, how do you propose fixing a broken immigration system in a country built upon immigration?” Buttigieg. noting his father was an immigrant to the United States, said “First of all, you’re right, where would our country be if it weren’t for immigration?” He credited his predecessors as mayors of South Bend, Ind., as well as his own leadership in leading the way back from a loss of industrial jobs with immigrants filling many spots in the workforce. “We’d still be a shrinking city without immigration,” he said. “We need to change the way we handle immigration, it undermines to the moral authority of our nation. We have a moral emergency at our border,” he said. Saying “It shouldn’t take long to fix it,” Buttigieg called for a “flexible system for the future” which authorizes more immigrants to fill job vacancies and “to make sure dreamers are at the front of the line.” Randy Cooper, rural Toledo,questioned Buttigieg about his views on Social Security. “They keep saying there’s no way to keep Social Security in tact, we have to cut benefits,” Buttigieg said. “It’s not true, we will make sure the Social Security system is in great shape.” He called for high earners to pay into it- “As long as we’re willing to raise the cap, if you’re making more than 250,000 bucks you ought to contribute to Social Security, too.” “I have a selfish interest in keeping the Social Security system into the 2050s, that’s when I plan on drawing it,” Buttigieg joked. In response to a question citing the current farm economy and a set aside of acres of row crops to pay for water quality, Buttigieg said, “We’re asking you to do things like cover crops without the support to make it pencil out. We should never ask farmers to do something that doesn’t pencil out- it’s not fair and it’s defeating common sense.”