At each event, as a candidate I’ve tried to balance a series of (sometimes competing) goals for my participation, including:

• Authentically presenting my true self to the audience while also trying to make a good impression
• Speak clearly and intelligently about those issues, getting specific whenever possible, in a very limited amount of time (“you have two minutes to lay out an economic development strategy for the next four years – GO!”)
• Highlighting substantive differences in approach and perspective between myself and my fellow candidates, without engaging in any personal attacks or petty remarks
• Actually answering the questions being posed while also tying them into the bigger picture and what might be meaningful to voters
• Being humble and gracious in my comments while also showing that I’m someone who will stand up for what’s equitable and just
• Making use of the time given to speak without dominating the conversation
• Showing respect and appreciation for all points of view while calling out problematic logic or misleading statements

As you can guess, doing all these things well and at the same time is quite an endeavor!  It’s one that I generally enjoy, but it also consumes a lot of energy and is quite a vulnerable experience.  My hope is that the end result is meaningful to voters.

I think there’s also value in previewing how a would-be officeholder might handle the debates, discussions and conversations that they would engage in once elected.  Do they actually get to the heart of the matter, or do they engage in pandering and circuitous logic?  Do they stay focused on specific positive outcomes, or do they keep coming back to what they’re against and who to blame?  Are they willing to listen carefully and change their minds along the way, or are they intent on showing everyone how right they are?

These qualities will directly impact the ability of (in my case) the City Council to get work done and move the community forward.  I’ve appreciated those who have told me that when they’ve watched the debates I’ve been a part of with these kinds of questions in mind, they’ve seen even more notable differences between candidates than even the answers to the debate questions might reveal.

Of course, not everyone watches debates that way.  For some people, it’s about who “wins” or who comes across as the strongest, most powerful presence.  I certainly understand that for the organizations hosting the debates, it can be more interesting to produce an event where some sparks fly and the tension rises.  That’s okay – I’ve said all along that we have to be careful not to be too polite to each other when the future of the City is at stake, but we also have to make sure we don’t turn the conversation into a shouting match, as some of the Presidential debates happening right now seem to have become.  It’s hard to talk credibly about collaboration and inclusive leadership when you’re also brandishing a knife.

I appreciate all the groups who have made the unusual number of local debates and conversations possible and accessible in this election: the Chamber of Commerce, the Palladium-Item, WCTV, the Human Rights Commission and the Student Initiative for Equality and Justice, Center City Development Corporation, Friends Fellowship Community, RadioTroy.com, WHON, and others.  Thank you!

We were asked about education, access to affordable housing, how to pay for proposed improvements in City government, the local Latino population, the community’s relationship with its workers, what we can do to keep more college graduates here, whether Council members should be injecting themselves into private business decisions, and more.

But I think the one question that was probably most  piercing for all of us was from Toivo Asheeke, who asked what we as Council members would do to restore a sense of hope and empowerment to people who live in Richmond.  It’s a huge, important, emotional question, and as Toivo was quoted as saying in today’s Palladium-Item, our answers as candidates were indeed “insufficient.”

As candidates running for one seat on a 9-seat local legislative body in a small city in the Midwestern U.S., it might be tempting to shrug off the call to play a role in restoring hope and empowerment in our citizens.  And politicians should rightly be careful to make promises they can’t keep – if you believed the statements that sometimes came out of President Obama’s election campaign, for example, as soon as he was sworn in there was going to be so much hope and empowerment flowing in the streets we’d choke on it; how’s that working out for us?

But I do think restoring hope and a sense of empowerment is something City Council can impact here in Richmond, and that’s what I said last night:

On the matter of hope, I said that we’re living in a world where hope is hard to come by globally, as economies decline, fuel prices rise and the gap between rich and poor grows larger, so it makes sense that the tension and uncertainty in the air is here in Richmond too.  But I think that every community has an opportunity to redefine what makes it hopeful.  We can shift from a culture that suggests you find hope in wealth, cool products/gadgets/clothes and defining yourself as a consumer to a culture that finds hope in the relationships we build with our neighbors and families, the way we treat other people, the way we care for those in need.  If we can show that hope exists in our humanity and in people instead of in economic indicators, I think we can model a life that our community members – especially young people – will find more hope in.

On the matter of empowerment, I agreed with Toivo that this is an area that City Council has done a disservice to the community, especially around the matter of the defunding of the Human Rights Commission.   As I said last night, you can argue the point of whether or not we need a government-funded HRC – that’s fine – but it should have been a two-way conversation that reflected a serious engagement by Council members with the perspectives and viewpoints brought by members of this Community.  Instead, it was a one-way conversation, with most members of Council agreeing outside of public meetings how they would vote and then not responding to the many concerns, questions and pleas for dialog that came from their constituents.  There are few things more disempowering than to feel like the elected officials who represent you at a local level – where the impact is felt most directly – are not listening, not willing to talk through the nuances of an issue, in some cases not even willing to respond.

That has to change.  If we want voters to care about an election, that has to change.  If we want our young people to feel more engaged with the civic life of Richmond, that has to change.  And if we want to build a version of Richmond that actually reflects the hopes and needs of its residents, that has to change.

I really appreciated Toivo’s question, challenging as it was.  My particular hope today is that voters here continue to push candidates for office with such thoughtful and relevant questions.  It’s good for us, and it’s definitely good for Richmond.

• I had a little fun with the users of the Palladium-Item forums who like to post anonymous rants. It resulted in at least one phone call threatening legal action against me and started at least one conversation about the nature of privacy on the Internet, so I consider that a mild success.
• Jim Hair, photographer and community activist extraordinaire, announced he and his wife Vicki are moving back to California after he accepted a position there. Funny on a number of levels, but mostly so because of what they’ve invested in Richmond.
• Jean Harper is at least fantasizing about a good joke, though I’m concerned about her allegations that members of the Earlham College swim team are promiscuous. Wait, does Earlham have a swim team? Ahem.
• Google’s got it going on with a new kind of wakeup alarm, plans for colonizing Mars, and a way to never send an e-mail that’s late.
• Lawmakers in Congress are “criticizing” oil industry executives for not investing in renewable resources – jolly good show!

What else ya got?

For me, a good local news story is one that reflects the things that are happening and the experiences people are having in and around our city and county. For it truly to reflect a local point of view, the story should include the perspectives, thoughts and emotions of local people, and preferably be written by someone who has a local context for (even, dare I say, a personal investment in) why those things might matter.

If it’s a story about a local event, the story should give some insight into why the event happened, who made it happen, who it affected, and what it means for the future.

If it’s about something good that happened, the story should reflect the resources and time and energy that went into making that good thing happen, who benefits from it, and how it can be built upon or replicated in the future (especially if we as a larger community have some opportunity we should seize).

If it’s about something bad that happened, the story should reflect the context that led to that thing happening, who was in a position to create a different outcome, who will be impacted by it, and who is in a position to prevent it from happening again (especially if we as a larger community have some responsibility to bear).

Are stories like “new chain restaurant opens” or “former local resident featured on reality TV show” local news? Sure, they affect us in some way, and they reflect the character and life of our community to some degree. But are they the *most* worthy local news stories? Are they the *most* reflective of who we are and who we want to become?

Maybe not – maybe there are other stories that are more integral to the life of our community now and in the future. Maybe there are other stories that are more substantial, more deserving of the attention than they get. Maybe there are perspectives, thoughts and emotions that aren’t represented well or even at all in the typical selection of local stories. Maybe there are ways we can look at what happens here and what’s possible here that would really change how we see ourselves, how we think about how to spend our time and energy.

I don’t have the answers or know for sure, but those “maybes” are what I think about when I consider whether or not the local media are doing a good job of reporting local news. Unfortunately, in many cases the hopes I have are in conflict with the business model and cultural role that media organizations embrace, and so I often end up disappointed.

If you’re interested in local media issues, you might also enjoy my occasional podcast about the same, The Richmond News Review.

Right now, the Pal-Item has a troll infestation. Ewwwww. And it’s not just the obvious kind either (though there are plenty of those). They’ve also got the kind that like to spread negativity, hate, oppression and self-referencing, oversimplified explanations of how the world is and should be, all under the guise of participating in some sort of great online community experiment. Which means it can take one or two reads of a post and a few seconds of brain processing time that you’ll never get back to realize that you’re dealing with a troll – who has the patience for that?

And so you’re just reading along looking for interesting conversation or news, and all of the sudden you spot a troll offering up its bait!

A-ha! Maybe if you were a forum newbie, you would try to respond with some positive perspective, a plea for civility, or some other retort. When you’ve been reading online forums as long as I have, you become jaded and bitter (or you just realize you have better ways to spend your time, like tending a garden or adoring your sweetheart), and you don’t bother with that any more. The instinct becomes to look for the button that says “IGNORE ALL POSTS BY THIS USER.” That’s the nice thing about trolls – they tend to be consistent in their ability to offer up nothing of value.

The issue is, a lot of forums don’t have that “Ignore” button available. Sometimes it’s an actual policy issue, and other times they just haven’t gotten around to it or there are other barriers. And then there’s the awkwardness and privacy issues of having your “ignore list” visible by the administrators of the forum – faux pas galore!

Enter the power of technology to help you reclaim your forum browsing experience. Here’s what you do:

1. Make sure you’re browsing the web using Firefox, one of the best web browser software packages available. It’s fast, free, secure and regularly updated and improved. Wow.
2. Install the Greasemonkey plugin for Firefox. It’s free, easy to install, and allows you to do some mighty cool things (though it doesn’t do much on its own).
3. Install the phpBB User Ignore script for Greasemonkey. Also free, also easy to install.

Now, remember our silly little troll friend? After you follow the steps above, the next time you pull up the forum page, you get a little [X] next to its name:

When you click the [X], the Troll is added to a list of forum users on your computer who you never want to hear from again. And when you reload the page, you experience blissful peace and quiet:

Of course, if you REALLY want to see what they’re saying, you can toggle that easily. And you can always take them off your blocked list if you need to. This system works for most any forum that is powered by phpBB, one of the most widely used forum packages out there. People have even begun to adopt it for use on other forum types as well.

Perhaps not surprisingly, once I built up my Troll-inventory and browsed the Pal-Item forums, I enjoyed the wonders of largely empty pages, ghosts of pettiness and provocation fading into the background as a few gems of halfway coherent comments popped up now and then.

In all seriousness, I’m sure some of the above sounds a little harsh at times, and the discussion about whether or not it’s kosher or helpful to just wipe other people out of your browsing experience is certainly one worth having (um, without the trolls). In most cases, I’d rather not be using an online forum at all – real human interaction can’t be beat. But for those times when you want to keep up with a virtual conversation and your box of Troll-B-Gone hasn’t arrived yet, I think this is pretty handy. Let me know how it works for you.