Dear BMG Community:
I wanted to share with all of you that my blog, Western Mass Politics & Insight has just kicked off a fundraising campaign to get us through a particularly busy election cycle this year in the Greater Springfield area.
For those of you who do not know, we have no fewer than four competitive legislative primaries and a district attorney’s primary to be followed by two competitive senate general elections.That is on top of the statewide races, which I have been covering as much as possible up to this point. Check out the campaign’s kickoff video to see just a smattering of what WMassP&I has done and what is before it this year.
However, it is not just the election cycle. It is the fact that the cycle is this busy and there are so many other things to break down on a regular basis on the municipal level and too few outlets that cover them all. From my crowd funding page:
There are very few resources devoted to the granular details of municipal politics & policy and state law and elections. When questions arose about how the Quinn Bill and residency laws were affected by collective bargaining, WMassP&I broke down state labor relations laws for readers. At the height of the biomass debate in Springfield, WMassP&I was there with detailed accounts of both the Council andZoning Board of Appeals hearings. In the midst of an historic election in Westfield, WMassP&I dug into campaign finance reports, investigated the candidates and then explained how the result came to pass. In Springfield’s first municipal elections without a mayoral race, WMassP&I interviewed almost all Council candidates in competitive races. As a local state Senate race found itself before a state body, WMassP&I described the history of ballot challenges.
The money will go toward operating expenses, including relatively modest expenses like web hosting to more expensive things like travel, equipment and compensating the great deal of time it takes to put all of it together. I know times are tough for a lot of folks, but I know readers all across the commonwealth are quite interested what is happening in and around Springfield and I hope you can help out!
Click here to contribute: http://igg.me/at/wmasspi/x/8059205
-Sincerely,
Matt
He has an incredibly smart, well run blog — and does the best kind of blogging by delivering real, hard local news.
I’ll be pitching in for this incredible service he provides — and I hope you all will, too.
And it’s very important to have his voice from W MA. I have contributed to support him, and hope others will too! If your’e not familiar with his work, then give a little to support these W MA voices/sources on principle. But if you know the value of his work, give a little more!
Thanks Ryan and Harmony and all of the others who have contributed so far.
We are at 10% of our goal after only a few days. There is still a lot of work to do, though. Please consider giving today. Contributions of $100 and over will get special recognition on WMassP&I’s website!
http://igg.me/at/wmasspi/x/8059205