Launching A Substack Newsletter
Elected officials need to find better ways to communicate in the 21st century. This is my attempt to do that, to get beyond sound bites and level with people about our city policies.
One of my big goals coming into office as a Gainesville City Commissioner was to try and engage constituents in a better, more authentic way. Before becoming a Commissioner, I always found it frustrating how hard it was to understand what the city was doing and why they were doing it.
What’s the deal with these zoning changes? Why are GRU rates going up and down constantly? How do we actually get to be a “100% renewable energy” community? Why aren’t there bike lanes on my commute to work?
I could guess at most of these things, but I never quite understood why no one simply just went out and explained themselves. There must be, or at least I hoped there were, people thinking this stuff through. I had to assume they were somewhat intelligent and capable of explaining themselves. Why did it all feel so opaque?
Eventually I got engaged enough in local issues that I could just ask Commissioners questions like these myself. I learned that no one was trying to hide anything, these are just busy people and no one felt it was their job to really dive into this stuff in a public way. It’s a small town, so I got to know the folks making decisions and got to ask these questions and get solid answers, but it all felt a little unfair. Being able to pick up the phone and personally question an elected official is no substitute for good, public information told in a digestible way.
A future without strong local news
Throughout my time learning and getting engaged with local politics there was one open and accessible way to get an understanding of local issues, and that was to read the Gainesville Sun. It wasn’t always perfect, the Sun generally wouldn’t do in depth coverage of some of these in-the-weeds policy issues. They, like all newspapers, focused on the most click-worthy, even if not most important stories of the day. But generally the Gainesville Sun was good at what it did, and the editorial section was well written by thoughtful people.
That’s changed dramatically in the last year. The newspaper industry has been facing a long-awaited reckoning with its financial model, and the Gainesville Sun has felt it more than most. The staff at the Sun has dropped from a whole team just a few years ago to, essentially, one editor and some interns.
There is no Editorial section any longer. There are no Letters to the Editor. There is no “Local News” section any longer. What local news there is has dropped from a daily occurrence to a once-a-week thing, and generally even those are quick bytes of press releases.
This is scary in a number of ways. I’m not sure if there’s really any substitute for a strong local newspaper. Newspapers shine a light on the issues that need to be addressed, they hold elected officials like me accountable, they alert residents to the things your government is doing well and highlight when we come up short.
What substitute is there to that? And what does a future look like without them being front and center?
Communicating in a new reality
Just as traditional media sources are losing importance there are more ways to directly communicate than ever before. If you want to make videos you can do that on TikTok. You can post photos on Instagram, or write long form information addended with a silly meme on Facebook. An email can be in thousands of mailboxes in a moment’s notice.
As an elected official I think it’s my job to communicate and level with people. We need to try and explain ourselves, explain what we’re doing as a city, and give forthright answers to the questions of our day. In the past that meant going through traditional media, giving interviews and writing editorials, but in this new reality we need to use new tools.
So that’s the purpose of this Substack. I hope you enjoy it and I hope it brings a little bit of appreciation to the depth of the things we do as a city. I hope it brings you around to understanding my perspective, and moves you to action to help bring some of the reforms I ran on to fruition.
More than anything though I just love writing. I have written editorials for my local newspaper since college, written for the Gainesville Sun for years, and miss the opportunity to write out thoughts in long form. It forces me to better reckon with my argument, see the weaknesses in it, to verify the assumptions I’ve made in getting to conclusions, and leaves those open to the world to pick at and give me feedback. That important, especially in the job I’m in now.
So subscribe if you’d like to get regular updates on the City and what we’re doing, and let me know if you have any suggestions.
Challenge all the commission to provide their own substack so they have more direct conversation with ratepayers in the County and City.