Districts
Often areas within government have elected officials who aren't always in communication with the citizenry. At CTN districts can help you stay in touch and voice your opinion to board members. Probably the most commonly referred to district would be your local school district.
When you consider that newspapers are dying on the vine, and any news we get is really national news because its from large networks like MSN CNN and FOX, so local issues aren't covered.
Now we aren't really reporting issues at CTN and did that really work anyway? We are really disclosing issues. Not that they were hidden but the day to day business of cities and the committees, districts, etc. are no longer a concern of local news organizations. They do it because they were voted in to do a job and after the vote, the elected officials have no means to communicate with the citizens who elected them.
And this may be the natural and most effective use of CTN. Bringing local issues to the forefront one email address at a time. Heck it may be you can measure the effectiveness of a local politician by the number of CTN Discussion he or she has started.
Here's a recent story.
I was attempting to create an account at my water district. South Coast
Water District. On the home page I saw a big Tooth Brush. Fluoridation? I couldn't remember voting on the issue or even being polled by the water district to see if I wanted Fluoride put into my water system. My next thought is what the heck does that cost? Who do we pay for Fluoride, did we have to install some kind of new equipment to inject just the right amount, did we need more equipment to ensure there isn't to much or too little? Will the price of fluoride increase with fuel costs, and exactly how much do I pay per month for this? Another concern was most of the fluoride washes me, my clothes, my car, waters my plants and isn't in my toothpaste anyway.
How do I actually get honest answers to these questions. If I'm the only one asking... the members of the water district won't care. But if a percentage of my neighbors want to know, heck we'll get answers.
CTN Discussions... get people to respond to a poll and send the results to the water district. CTN blogs... discuss the merits of fluoridation CTN Wiki what is fluoride and where does it come from. Are we getting the best price? Is the low and high quality sources of fluoride Do my plants like it. Is it good for my gold fish, dog, cat and bird?
