To Blog or Not To Blog?

Welcome to our Blog, “The People's Voice ... Heard.” Thank you for visiting and taking time to read it. For my first post, I wanted to cover the basics; namely, Why a blog? Why the name? Why the giraffe? I will end with some guidance on subscribing.

The purpose of The People's Voice (TPV) is to provide an information hub – a one-stop shop, so to speak – to publicize local government activities. Although we (TPV Board) include our insight and views where appropriate on the site, doing this work brings many issues to our attention, and we wanted a vehicle to delve deeper into topics of interest. This blog gives us the opportunity to share our perspectives on current local happenings.

As for the name, I used the phrase “The People’s Voice” during my District 1 County Council campaign last year. Between door-knocking, meet-and-greets, and other campaign-related functions, I heard one message again and again – people felt they weren’t being heard, or should I say listened to, by their local government. At that time, my commitment was to bring their voices to the County Council position. I see the work of TPV continuing this commitment by providing information about government projects and hearing dates in plain English so citizens can be better informed, and thus, more involved; so that your voice, everyone's voices, from all sides can be heard. We also sponsor the non-partisan Ethics Ballot during election cycles, whereby candidates who we believe place community interests over special interests earn our “Ethics Star.”

That’s the history behind our use of the phrase The People’s Voice. When we launched this website, the domain name for ThePeoplesVoice, as well as every reasonable variation of it, was taken. Our Board discussed several alternative names, and although we decided to go with PeoplesVoiceLLC.org to differentiate the civic work from the political (PAC), “The People’s Voice Heard” was one of the alternative names that we really liked. Since this blog gives us a chance to highlight topics and issues that we hear from other HoCo groups, “The People’s Voice … Heard” seemed like the best name for our blog.

Now, why the giraffe typing on a laptop? During my years of zoning work and my campaign, many people said that I stuck my neck out, telling it like it is, and in a non-partisan way. Someone once sent me a stuffed giraffe, which became a campaign mascot for me. It's a meaningful graphic: purple for non-partisanship, and a symbol for people striving to reach above and beyond - in our case to disseminate information. The Howard County Citizens Association, where I was VP for a few years, has joined TPV in a civic coalition to work on this mutual goal. We gave the giraffe a laptop, because it seemed appropriate for a blog, but also because it gives us a chance to highlight a message.

If you have not already done so, please consider joining TPV as a member. You only need to provide your email address, and you get easy access to Campaign Finance Reports and County Project Information and Schedules, which we update bi-weekly. We also will be including a tally of Council and Board votes.

If you would like to subscribe to this blog, please click the RSS (orange) button in the top right corner of the page. If you are not familiar with RSS, please visit our FAQ page.

Finally, we strongly encourage comments and feedback. I look forward to hearing your voice!