People should begin being involved by being informed
Recent rate increases by the Newcastle City Council caused quite the stir among residents over the past week or so, with many taking to Facebook to express their displeasure and just as many turning to an even more appropriate source to discuss their concerns — the Newcastle City Council.
We watched the engagement between the public and the elected officials, and while we were pleased to see the level of interest shown in local concerns, there are a few things that we would like to point out.
Yes, the city of Newcastle could have done more to inform the residents about the rate increases when they were first proposed, and then again when they were adopted.
Here at the News Letter Journal, we often have issues getting information from elected officials and public servants, but in the case of these rate increases, we did publish several news stories — both in print and online. We even ran a poll about the increases, and because they were discussed at multiple city council meetings, people could keep abreast of the issue on our Youtube Channel.
This time, we were able to prepare our readers for this news, but this is not always the case and having the public active in local government is gratifying and in the long run helps us do our jobs. When we are not the only ones asking questions, it is harder to avoid them.
Unfortunately, a longstanding habit of avoiding the newspaper and our desire to inform community members has contributed to the confusion some residents feel over where they should go to consistently find information about their local governments. We would again like to encourage the Newcastle City Council and other local entities to partner with the News Letter Journal to get valuable information to the public — even when that information may produce a negative response from your constituents. We are here to serve the community, just like you, and our purpose is to make this information readily available, despite how uncomfortable it might be for the government officials we ask to share this information.
In addition to encouraging the local governments and agencies to work with the paper, we would also like to encourage the residents of Weston County to take additional steps to be informed, and to use the wealth of information the News Letter Journal provides. We produce more information about local governments than all other outlets combined — including local and national media outlets and amateur online postings alike — and we also provide several options to access the news. In addition to our weekly printed edition — which only costs one dollar — we offer most of our news for free on our website (newslj.com), our weekly newsletter (NEWC Now), Facebook, YouTube and even a weekly podcast.
As informed residents of our community, we want to ask our readers to do a little extra to help ensure that their neighbors, friends and family are informed and engaged in local government as well.
If you know somebody who seems to be interested in what is going on with local government, but they say they can’t afford to read the News Letter Journal or “don’t have time to read the whole paper,” please send them a free subscription of NEWC Now and encourage them to take five minutes a week to catch up on what is happening in local government. Remind them that our Facebook page is free, and many of the stories on our website are as well.
We would like to do our part, so we ask that you do yours by inviting a friend or family member to check out the News Letter Journal in one of the many places we can be found.
