Last evening, our county changed from three voting districts to five. In a single vote of a few seconds, it became law. It is a change that now dramatically changes how we citizens of Whatcom County will be represented in our local government. And perhaps in the Port of Bellingham government also. After the Districting Committee decision and dissolution of their committee, I rushed home to write the article of this news and post it here. And then....nothing.

No other local blog or webite posted the info last night. The Whatcom Hawk, which had been aggressively commenting on this issue for months, had nothing. It had become a non-issue.  No interest. The Bellingham Herald this morning, nothing, even though the vote was before their deadline. Today on the Herald website - nothing. Apparently it was not important for residents and citizens of Whatcom County to know this.

This morning Prince died. Within 30 minutes the Herald had three stories online about this - including graphics. Still nothing about important local political news.  

For years, I bashed the Herald for not reporting important local issues. It is why I started Northwest Citizen in 1995, to post what the Herald covered up, what it ignored, often to the benefit of a local government agency that was screwing up. For the past couple years, I've eased off as the Herald staff was decimated and austerity caused those remaining to just hope to keep their jobs for a while longer. Last summer the Herald noticeably stopped covering local government and started covering car accidents, minor crimes and weather events as major and even headline stories. These may be interesting reads, but such stories do not provide us with the information we need to act intelligently as citizens. Our local newspaper has stopped being our source of important local news.

As the Herald continues to deteriorate, I find I am even more committed to providing a forum for citizen journalists and reader comments at NWCitizen. Through donations I hope to pay the expenses of managing this site. Through advertising, I hope to make a modest living so I can devote full-time to this endeavor. 

We have several writers now who are knowledgeable in different public areas and are committed to informing their fellow citizens of important issues: planning that impacts how we live; politics that impact those who make our public and political decisions; corporate action that endangers us or compromises our environment; government processes that waste our money or lie about what they are doing with our tax dollars. And more.  

If we residents - we citizens - are informed about what is happening around us, we can participate in decisions about our future and vote intelligently. We can actually act as citizens and not subjects or pawns. But first of all, we need to know what the hell is happening.  

I am looking for a few more writers. If you are knowledgeable about some issue that impacts us locally and can write decently (we have an editor who can help smooth out your articles), and if you want to join us, please contact me. We can meet for coffee to see if we both feel it might work. We could start with some guest articles to see how it goes. If it works, then you can help your fellow citizens know more about important issues in our local communities. If you feel you are qualified and are interested, please write me: john@nwhouse.com  - John Servais, owner and publisher