Archive: Opinions

A decade ago, when the Lansing Star was young, the various municipal boards around Town were chatty, controversial, or dysfunctional.  The Town Board was always good for interesting tidbits, especially if you waited for the end of their meetings when each board member had something to report.  The Village Board was more conversational.  The Fire Commissioners didn't often yield news, but sometimes an argument would flare up.  It was the School Board that was horribly dysfunctional, wasting countless hours on 'warm and fuzzy' presentations, then arguing through the rest of the night, often past midnight when they were too exhausted to make rational decisions.  Today all these boards run their meetings professionally, respectfully, and fairly quickly.

Don't they have any sympathy for journalists?  The unfeeling board members of today are so efficient in their meeting practices that a poor journalist has to pay strict attention to extract any news at all!  You used to be able to count on a good fight in a school board meeting, good for at least a week of headlines.  Now?  They run a most efficient meeting, speeding through presentations and action items like skilled NASCAR drivers.

No news is good news (except for journalists).  It is bad to have issues (unless you are a newspaper).  So when there was bad news and/or lots of issues, being a small town journalist was much easier,

The competitive me always loved staying late at Town Board meetings several years ago, because then Town Board member Bud Shattuck would wait to the end and then propose controversial proposals and initiatives, or, minimally, really interesting ones.  The other reporters would pack up early, little realizing that Shattuck had a habit of saving the best for last.  So I often scooped them all as he initiated one story after another.

In 2006 he proposed a local sex offender ordinance.  Hooboy! did that make for a great article!  And it was a story the Lansing Star had exclusively!  With 'Sex Offender' and 'Lansing' in the same headline, hits on the article (we count a hit when a reader clicks the 'Read More' button on an article) went through the roof!

I remember researching that story when I was writing it.  I, like many of our readers, was shocked at the fact that there were some seriously bad sex offenders living in our sleepy, rural town, and how many there were.  One of the worst was actually living near one of the town parks (he no longer does).  And of course that meant follow up articles until the Town actually did pass its law.

The school board had a different problem -- it was clear the board members didn't all like each other, and they were willing to duke it out in the public meetings.  While it was lovely to watch students dance or play the violin, presentations like that tended to take up a large chunk of time.  That pushed the real work of the board later, and then, tired from their day jobs, the arguments would begin.

While it probably wasn't good for the district, it was great for generating news.  I found myself in the odd position of not reporting on many things, because I thought it would be hurtful to the community.  But, while I do enjoy getting home at a very reasonable hour after school board meetings these days, I always loved those horrid meetings in the sense that I knew I was guaranteed at least a couple of juicy articles.

So good news, Lansing.  Your elected representatives are doing it right.  They are focusing on the business of your community and leaving the nonsense behind.

Blast them all!

v12i15