Retooling and back to work!

Okay, break is over, everyone back on your heads.

The New Paltz Gadfly has been gestating, and is being born anew.  There are going to be a few changes to the blog, but never fear, change is good!

1. First off, it's just me here on in.  I enjoyed having kT Tobin blogging alongside me for over two years, but she's decided to move on to other things.  I hope she decides to weigh in as a commenter from time to time so that her viewpoint will not be entirely missed.
2. This gives me a chance to get away from politics!  The Gadfly drifted political, but politics was never my personal preference.  I prefer talking about government.  What does that mean?

It means I'm not going to get caught up on nonsense like political campaigns.  Only once has a local politician that I've supported actually been the person I thought he was after he was elected; that was Mike Nielson.  It's impossible to tell what someone is really like when they're sidling up to you to curry favor, so I'm putting the curry aside.

This reinvigorated gadfly is going to be interested in what these people are doing once they're in office.  If I interview an elected official I am going to try to avoid using direct quotes, which should minimize how much they can use this blog to look good.  Instead I will focus on observing their actual behavior, and just paraphrase their excuses.  No puffery, just a critical eye.

There's a lot of local government to talk about.  The village, the town, the school district are all definitely local, and largely what I've focused on in the past.  However, my political campaign helped me to understand how much county government impacts us, so I am sure to pay some attention to our local legislators; one of them is too steeped in the development world to even have an opinion on the most important issue to effect our senior citizens (sure wish he'd mentioned that during the campaign, hmm?) and the other will have plenty of opportunities to show his colors, whatever they may turn out to be.

It's the dawn of a new era, and like a phoenix, this gadfly is ready to set the world on fire.