Building a new civic habit

I spent the first year of my career covering local politics in Peace River, Alberta, a small town of 6,000 five hours north of Edmonton. It was a formative experience for me, and since moving to the states I’ve told everyone who will listen that local politics is the antidote to feeling jaded about the political process.

Local politics is where the decisions that affect you most are made, and it’s also where you have the most potential influence. Sadly, the latest national drama has a tendency of drowning out local issues. I know it did for me, particularly in 2016.

I’ve told people to care about local politics for years, but if I’m honest I’ve rarely put much thought or effort into the places I’ve lived since leaving Peace River in 2009. I hope to change that now.

Local journalism is in trouble, in part because old revenue models are being disrupted. It’s harder and harder to pay people to sit through things like city council meetings, but sitting through those meetings is how journalists learn to cover local politics effectively.

I can’t fix the underlying economics here. But I can sit through the meetings.

Here’s the plan: I’m going to attend every city council meeting I can here in my adopted home of Hillsboro, Oregon. I’m going to take notes, and I’m going to write stories. I have no plans on getting paid to do this; I have a full-time job already. This is a free time project, motivated by my desire to build a civic habit for myself.

It’s been almost a decade since I covered politics regularly. I’m not promising this will be great work right out of the gate: I need time to become familiar with the landscape. But I’m going to work at it, and I hope it will prove useful. I also hope, in time, that others will join me, as readers or even as fellow citizen journalists. Get in touch if you’re interested, but otherwise I’m happy to have you as a read.