Barber's 'Congress On Your Corner' pushed back to afternoon

Posted Jun 22, 2012

Dylan Smith
TucsonSentinel.com

Will Seberger/pool/ZUMABarber on election night.

Travel delays have pushed back new U.S. Rep. Ron Barber's first "Congress On Your Corner" event to 1-2:30 p.m. on Saturday. It had been scheduled for 9 a.m.

The meet-and-greet with constituents will be held at the originally scheduled location: the Safeway at 5548 E. Grant Rd.

Delays at the airport in Washington, D.C., made it impossible for Barber to arrive in Tucson in time for the event, said his spokesman, Mark Kimble.

Thunderstorms near the nation's capital caused power outages and flight delays. A fire at an FAA facility in New Jersey on Friday knocked out a system that coordinates flights in the Mid-Atlantic area. Flights in New York were grounded or delayed, leading to widespread disruptions, and hundreds of flights were cancelled.

Barber was sworn in this week after winning a special election to replace Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona's 8th Congressional District.

Giffords and Barber were both shot in the Jan. 8, 2011 assassination attempt on the former congresswoman that claimed the lives of six and wounded 13, including Giffords and her former district director, now successor.

The shooting took place at a similar "Congress On Your Corner" event, on a Saturday morning at a Safeway on the Northwest Side