HOMER CITY, PA — The vast divide between the government’s understanding of the needs of the people they serve and the people themselves was never more excruciatingly apparent than it was this past week at a Pennsylvania town hall meeting.

The two-hour event, sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency Interagency Working Group Rapid Response Team, was supposed to be for the IWP to answer questions of local residents, elected officials, small business owners, and furloughed power plant employees about the grants they were promised to revitalize their borough after the closure a year ago of a coal-fired power plant.