HILLTOWNS — The Hilltown Homefront Patriots, a local arm of the growing Tea Party movement, will have its second official gathering on Saturday, March 20, at 11 a.m. at the Highlands Restaurant and Tavern on Route 156 in Knox. The meeting had been scheduled for last month, but was postponed due to the weather.

Among the group’s goals are lower taxes, smaller government, upholding of Second Amendment rights, questioning global warming, and reforming health care.

“We are a group that is coalescing around the opposition to the growing size and influence of government in our daily lives,” Daniel Smith of Westerlo, a founder of the local group, wrote to The Enterprise this week. “From an ever-increasing tax burden, to new restrictions, and loss of freedoms, we feel that the role of government has been perverted to where, instead of citizens, we are viewed as clients. Instead of being independent minded, we are thought of as those who need guidance.”

The interests of rural communities, Smith wrote, should be heard and protected.