Bringing the Heat

Welcome to my site. I have a fairly long history in local government and community service, extending back to the early 90s, pre-internet. My technical background, a side interest in computers, and having parents who were strong volunteers brought me to embrace the internet and engaging others through it when it served a public purpose.

I’ve created a local government website, led local sports clubs, and served as a little league umpire, a school board VP, and I ran for state office (unsuccessfully).

All of this, and especially the school board service, taught me that we have to bring transparency and engagement to every governmental body that effects our lives. For government to work for the people, the people need to know what is going on in government. We need to engage them on issues we care about.

SO, I hope you will use the resources in this part of the website to engage your local government effectively. They need to know that you are who they serve and to be continuously reminded that you are in charge of how government works. Elected leaders are there to serve the public, not the other way around. And these leaders need to feel the heat when they are veering off of the path that serves their constituents.

A fundamental part of engaging government is to attend their meetings, ask questions about how they are conducting the operations under their purview, and forcing them to explain their decisions and actions in a way that the public can understand.

In most government activities, there are public meetings, and most are required to allow for public comment. These public comment periods are your change, and indeed your obligation, to engage government on matters that are both relevant to the body and that you believe reflect on issues of importance to the community.

Over the last 50 years or more, we have suffered a significant decline in the amount of education being provided to our students and our general population about how things actually work to keep us safe, keep us fed, keep us sheltered, and provide opportunity.

This has led to a steady effort to destroy our democracy because an uninformed citizenry cannot command the necessary and obligatory control over their leaders. And when those leaders lack control, they choose increasingly self-serving actions.

Engagement is fundamental to rebuilding this awareness and control. I hope you will join in to engage government to make them demonstrate how things work, why, and help others to get involved and share their voices.

And in these days when certain elected and unelected individuals are trying to tear our democracy apart, there is no time to waste in getting informed, engaging government, and helping others to do so.

Thank you for visiting.

Let’s bring the heat.

Comments welcomed.