Apr 24, 2013

N.P.R. Dropping Commission Coverage During Campaign Season

Although, Northern Pacific Report will continue to provide coverage of all or nearly all Newcastle Council Meetings in the future, we will drop coverage of City Commission meetings after May 13th, 2013, the first day of filing for political candidates in Washington state.  N.P.R., which has limited funds due to hardly any donations, has decided to focus on the campaign aspects of Newcastle City Elections for the rest of spring, the summer and early autumn rather than City Commission meetings.  N.P.R. may pick up Commission meetings, again, after the General Election, but will not definitively make that decision until then.  The commissions will not be altogether left out, however, since the respective chairpersons of these commissions give reports to the Council at the Council Meetings.  Our last coverage of a Commission meeting until further notice will be the Community Activities Commission Meeting in early May. 

Moreover, there is a possibility that coverage of Council Meetings will be truncated a little in the near future if there is a conflict with the Editor's general work schedule, but hopefully that won't be the case.  The Council, apparently, rejected a request by Editor and Council Candidate, Mark Greene, earlier this year, to make nighttime Council Meetings 30 minutes earlier in order to make it easier for working people and the elderly in Newcastle to have a normal sleeping routine, or to accomodate late night work shifts as this would be applicable to some citizens   This wasn't brought up by Greene at the time, but 2 Saturday morning meetings per year -- in August and November, on the Saturdays preceding the Primary and General Election, respectively; thereby, enabling the canceling of Tuesday meetings on Election Days -- would also be a good idea to make meetings accessible at least twice a year to those who otherwise can't attend because of night work or other time conflicts, and also freeing up Election nights for citizens who are interested in meetings and elections, and would rather not have to choose between one or the other.

[revised on 4/27/2013]

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