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It's time.

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - Town hall meetings aren't easy.

They can be very unpredictable.

There is no buffer between the lawmaker and those the lawmaker serves.

They may get loud. They may get unruly.

But sometimes you have to bite the bullet and get in the ring.

That's the choice that Rep. Daniel Donovan (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn) faces now.

He should hold the town hall and be done with it.

Things have gotten more heated this year, with a nationwide effort by the left to put GOP lawmakers on the spot about Obamacare repeal, President Donald Trump's agenda, immigration and other issues.

Some town hall meetings have been unruly. Protestors have been disruptive. Not everybody has come to listen. Meetings have become shouting matches.

There have been accusations, not proven, that some protestors are being paid.

Members of the group Indivisible, led by two former congressional staffers, have crafted a field guide to Trump "resistance" that's been put into practice at some of these meetings. The group has denied that the point is to disrupt town halls or to be aggressive. They say people just want answers from their representatives.

As with most things, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

And we've seen this movie before. In 2009, Tea Party activists took to town halls to slam Democratic lawmakers over Obamacare.

Some of those meetings turned unruly, disruptive. There were accusations, unproven, that everything was being bankrolled by Koch brothers. Then-Rep. Michael McMahon (D-Staten Island/Brooklyn) faced months of pressure to hold a public meeting on the health-care plan.

The playbook's in the other hand now. That's politics.

Donovan hasn't held a town hall since being elected in May of 2015 and is getting a lot of heat to do so now.

The other week, protestors disrupted a Donovan appearance at the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. Several people were escorted out by police. Women's groups from Staten Island and Brooklyn protested outside Donovan's office in Brooklyn the other day. And there have been demonstrations on our side of the district as well.

Donovan has said he has no plans to hold a town hall, as protestors are expected to turn it into a shouting match. Donovan has said he welcomes constituents to his office for meetings. And Donovan holds telephone town hall meetings. He had one the other night that 14,000 people took part in, according to his office.

Telephone town halls are nice, but they're not the same. There's no opportunity for following up. No opportunity to pin the lawmaker down on an answer. It's not a real give-and-take. The people who get to take part in the call and the questions asked are all controlled.

McMahon eventually had that town hall meeting. A capacity crowd of more than 800 people showed up at the Petrides Educational Complex in October of 2009. It was unruly. McMahon talked down some sign-carrying folks who were looking to incite the crowd. McMahon took questions for three hours, an hour past the allotted time.

McMahon's choice on Obamacare wasn't easy. He was a blue congressman in a red district. Members of his own party were pressing him to support Obamacare, even though a yes vote would be political poison to the borough's GOP-leaning voters.

It wasn't an easy night. Democracy is messy sometimes. McMahon took his hits. But he got through it.

Donovan will too. If the crowd turns ugly, shame on them.

Donovan shouldn't hold the town hall just because the left is pressuring him to. He should hold it because he should have held one by now anyhow. It's part of the ordinary give-and-take of the job.

Former GOP Rep. Michael Grimm held a town hall four months after getting elected. Even Mayor Bill de Blasio held a town hall here, the borough where he's least popular. It went well.

Think of it as a rite of passage.