A Requiem for Raleigh’s Citizens Advisory Councils – Letter to the Editor

After some back and forth with the N&O editorial staff, I have trimmed my CAC op-ed into more of a long letter. Hopefully it will run in Friday’s edition.

A Requiem for Raleigh’s Citizens Advisory Councils

Amid concerns that rapid growth was distancing city leaders from the community, Raleigh launched its Citizens Advisory Councils (CACs). For 46 years, CACs were a forum where citizens and government officials could exchange information and concerns until Raleigh City Council abruptly ended this decades-long partnership in a vote that demonstrated a shocking lack of transparency and good governance.

Much has been made of the (merely advisory) role played by CACs in rezoning cases but CACs were so much more. CACs stepped in when neighbors needed help, organized school supplies drives, and provided a forum where wary neighbors met with Raleigh Police officers to build connections, and the list goes on. It didn’t matter who you were, if you were a resident your voice counted.

All other city advisory boards get their direction from the top; work must first be approved by the City Council. In this model, how do we ensure citizen concerns are adequately addressed? Who’s doing the listening and who’s doing the talking? Absent the independence of CACs, community engagement quickly devolves into a one-way conversation. The partnership is no more.

CACs had their challenges but they also represented one of the most basic forms of democracy: neighbors coming together to work things out. We will be hard-pressed to do better.

A Requiem for Raleigh’s Citizens Advisory Councils

Update 12 Feb: After some back-and-forth with the N&O editorial staff, I have trimmed my op-ed into a long letter.

I wrote and submitted this 500-word Op-Ed to the News and Observer tonight. I hope they run it. I will be forever passionate about citizen engagement (real citizen engagement) and oppose any efforts to water it down.

A Requiem for Raleigh’s Citizens Advisory Councils

In 1974, amid concerns that Raleigh’s rapid growth was distancing city leaders from the community they served, Mayor Clarence Lightner launched Raleigh’s Citizens Advisory Councils (CACs). CACs offered a forum where citizens and government officials could share information and concerns. For over 46 years, the city’s 18 CACs and their parent organization, the Raleigh Citizens Advisory Council (RCAC) was the only advisory board not appointed by City Council, a unique status that granted neighbors the freedom to discuss what was important to them and a means to provide unfiltered insight to City Council. Sadly, in a vote that demonstrated a shocking lack of transparency and good government, Raleigh’s mayor and City Council abruptly ended this decades-long partnership with nothing ready to take its place.

Much has been made of the (merely advisory) role CACs played in rezoning cases but CACs were so much more. When a neighbor lost her home and husband in a tragic fire, CAC neighbors pulled together to collect clothes and furniture. After the April 2011 tornadoes ripped through Raleigh, CAC volunteers were in the streets clearing debris and distributing water. In response to crime concerns, CACs worked with landlords to implement after-school activities for their teen residents and worked with the Raleigh Police Department to open neighborhood offices. CACs provided a neutral forum where police could meet with wary neighbors and build new connections and trust. CACs organized community events that promoted health and distributed school supplies to neighborhood kids. With CACs it didn’t matter what race you were, how wealthy you were, what your age was, or whether you rented or owned your home: if you were a resident your voice counted. You had a seat at the table.

Like any organization, CACs had their challenges. The unvarnished feedback CACs gave was not always welcome (especially to some developers, though almost all projects won CAC favor). CACs faced a continual fight for shrinking city resources and support. And, yes, CACs were known to butt heads at times but it is precisely this independence that gave CACs their strength: chairs were answerable only to their neighbors.

It is this independence that Raleigh will miss the most. Every other city advisory board is driven from the top down; its work must first be approved by the City Council. How can we ensure citizen concerns will be adequately addressed when city council alone controls the conversation? Who will be doing the listening and who will be doing the talking? Without the crucial independence enjoyed by CACs, community engagement quickly devolves into a one-way conversation. Partnership has been fatally wounded.

Raleigh’s CACs represented one of the most beautiful forms of democracy: neighbors coming together to work things out. Our city will be hard-pressed to improve on it.

Excuse me, but Oculan did a great job explaining its usefulness

I was wandering through my MT.Net archives and noticed I had linked to a Triangle Business Journal story on the revival of Oculan. The story included this quote, which for some reason I just noticed was a slap in the face to me (hey it’s only been 18 years, right?):

Where Oculan stumbled, said independent analyst Richard Ptak, of Ptak, Noel & Associates in Amherst, N.H., was in the marketing.

“They had a very nice solution and a good strategy, but were never able to communicate why it was a good product,” Ptak said. “A lot of tech entrepreneurs think all they need is a better mousetrap, but nobody buys technology for the sake of technology anymore. They buy it because it’ll solve a problem.”

Well, Mr. Ptak, Oculan did a fantastic job communicating why it was a good product. Not only did it have an outstanding team of sales engineers out pitching it, the damn product sold itself. Your quote about a better mousetrap shows your ignorance.

So there.

A Letter From Gary Larson | TheFarSide.com | TheFarSide.com

Gary Larson has finally arrived online and the promise of new The Far Side cartoons is in the air, yet I don’t know how I feel about this. I will always love The Far Side but I cringe at the thought of the new stuff not measuring up to old stuff. I also miss seeing the cartoon nestled in the comics pages of an actual newspaper. And, truth be told, Larson’s hero status fell in my eyes when he aggressively chased his cartoons off the Internet.

Twelve years after I wrote that I still feel the same way. Now that Larson wants to join the party is he still welcome? Does The Far Side belong on the Internet at all, even if it’s Larson’s own doing? Or should it ride off into the sunset along with the newspaper industry?

I kinda wish I hadn’t had to ponder this question.

Truthfully, I still have some ambivalence about officially entering the online world — I previously equated it to a rabbit hole, although “black hole” sometimes seems more apropos — but my change of heart on this has been due not only to some evolution in my own thinking, but also in two areas I’ve always cared about when it comes to this computer/Internet “stuff”: security and graphics.

Source: A Letter From Gary Larson | TheFarSide.com | TheFarSide.com

Letter to the editor on assault weapons

I sent this letter to the editor to the N&O today. I hope it gets printed.

I served four years in the U.S. Navy never having heard an AK-47. Then a week ago, hotheads brought their gun battle to my neighborhood. It became crystal clear hearing that cannon-like booming that these assault rifles are nothing less than weapons of war.

There is no justification for anyone outside of the military or law enforcement to posses assault weapons. Can we get to the well-regulated part of our “well-regulated militia” now?

The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit » Nieman Journalism Lab

How many things are you subscribed to right now?

How many news organizations or writers or blogs or podcasts do you pay for every month?

How many do you plan on being subscribed to at this time next year?

The growth of the subscription model has been one of the biggest developments in online journalism in the past few years. In the sports world, where my research is situated, this is most clearly seen by the growth of The Athletic, the subscription-only site that’s expanded into every major pro market in the U.S. and in November received $40 million in venture capital funding.But in 2019, it feels like there’s a bit of a reckoning coming. There’s a subscription-pocalypse looming. And newspapers are going to get hit by it.

Source: The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit » Nieman Journalism Lab

Apple’s new deal for journalism should send publishers running – The Verge

Social networks influence democracy in part because they occupy a large portion of our shared information sphere. Which voices bubble up there — and which are smothered — affect the discussions we have, and the actions that we take as a result. But a tech giant doesn’t need to have a social network to alter our information environment. If Apple is to have its way, all it may need is the iPhone.

[…]

It’s easy to see why Apple favors the scheme. It gets a windfall of new revenue at a time when the decline in iPhone sales has made selling additional services a high priority. It gets to bring more high-quality publishers onto its platform, burnishing its reputation as a premium brand. And it gets to talk loudly about how much it loves journalism, as Apple vice president Eddy Cue did when announcing Apple’s acquisition of the subscription news app Texture last year. “We are committed to quality journalism from trusted sources and allowing magazines to keep producing beautifully designed and engaging stories for users,” he said at the time.

Source: Apple’s new deal for journalism should send publishers running – The Verge

Mickey Mouse will be public domain soon—here’s what that means | Ars Technica

As the ball dropped over Times Square last night, all copyrighted works published in 1923 fell into the public domain (with a few exceptions). Everyone now has the right to republish them or adapt them for use in new works.

It’s the first time this has happened in 21 years.

In 1998, works published in 1922 or earlier were in the public domain, with 1923 works scheduled to expire at the beginning of 1999. But then Congress passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. It added 20 years to the terms of older works, keeping 1923 works locked up until 2019.

Many people—including me—expected another fight over copyright extension in 2018. But it never happened. Congress left the existing law in place, and so those 1923 copyrights expired on schedule this morning.

And assuming Congress doesn’t interfere, more works will fall into the public domain each January from now on.

Source: Mickey Mouse will be public domain soon—here’s what that means | Ars Technica

The Growth of Sinclair’s Conservative Media Empire | The New Yorker

Sinclair is not Fox News … it owns FCC broadcast licenses that require it to serve the public interest. Sinclair can’t spew lies and propaganda with reckless abandon the way Fox News does. Sinclair can be held accountable.

In some cases, [Sinclair] anchors have been compelled to read from scripts prepared by Sinclair. In April, 2018, dozens of newscasters across the country parroted Trump’s invectives about “fake news,” saying, “Some members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control exactly what people think. This is extremely dangerous to our democracy.” In response, Dan Rather, the former anchor of “CBS Evening News,” wrote, on Twitter, “News anchors looking into camera and reading a script handed down by a corporate overlord, words meant to obscure the truth not elucidate it, isn’t journalism. It’s propaganda. It’s Orwellian. A slippery slope to how despots wrest power, silence dissent, and oppress the masses.”

Source: The Growth of Sinclair’s Conservative Media Empire | The New Yorker

Hong Kong denies visa to Financial Times journalist Victor Mallet — Quartz

I was sorry to learn that Hong Kong’s freedom-of-speech protections are under attack by mainland China.

Mainland China frequently denies visas to foreign journalists and scholars—a preferred way to force out those whose reporting or research officials object to. But Hong Kong has long offered a welcoming visa regime that made it a safe hub for journalists in the region.

That may be changing. The Hong Kong Free Press on Friday (Oct. 5) reported that the Hong Kong Immigration Department denied a work visa renewal to highly-regarded Financial Times journalist Victor Mallet, the paper’s Asia news editor. The Financial Times said in a statement, “This is the first time we have encountered this situation in Hong Kong. We have not been given a reason for the rejection.”

Source: Hong Kong denies visa to Financial Times journalist Victor Mallet — Quartz