I haven't written a lot this year. There are many reasons for this. Some good and admirable, some not. Some of it is laziness, some not. However, what is true is that I've started missing it. I started out writing a newspaper column way back before I was in elected office. Couldn't believe my hometown paper would be interested in anything I might have to say. The pay was horrible (I think I donated most of it to their Christmas fund) but I loved it. Still have my first column framed on the wall: "When it comes to Old Towns future: Plan now, Argue later". It's at least a little disturbing that I could've written that title ten years or ten days ago. Indeed, we need vision and planning for our City. 
When I landed in elected office I had to give up the newspaper column so I decided to start a blog. Moving from a newspaper column to a blog was pretty cool and I like to think that somewhere along the way it helped our city – even if by simply communicating what the Council was up to….that certainly isn't happening now. In the interim we lost our "Manassas" newspaper and are now covered by an amalgam of online papers and, when things go horribly wrong, the WaPo.
It distresses me that nobody is shining much light on what's going on in City Hall. I don't know that I have the juice, time or talent to start another newspaper and I'm unsure it would be a good idea in any event. That medium seems tobe dying or at least transforming and I want nothing to do with being an actual reporter. So that seems dead.
So, what I have decided to do is write somewhat about local / state issues and try to bring some visibility to them. Write about them and post it here. Nobody else is talking about this stuff. We lost our newspaper and we are losing our sense of place and it has to stop. So what I'm going to do is pick up my column again and put it here. Just like before, some will be great and some will suck. That's the breaks. I suppose the biggest difference between this approach and the previous ten years of blog posts will be that I'm going to be free with my opinion on things.
Many times when writing blog posts whilst still in office I tried very hard to write those posts straight down the middle – reporter style. I'll still do that where it's applicable but this is an opinion piece from here on out! Might have to break a few eggs along the way!
Hope someone enjoys it. Look for the first column in a day or so.
January 31, 2016 at 9:14 am
Opinions need to be shared and ideas discussed to make for more robust solutions for the City. Thanks for picking up the slack!
January 31, 2016 at 10:42 am
Go for it.
January 31, 2016 at 11:05 am
Do it!!!! Thanks.
January 31, 2016 at 4:46 pm
Will be great to hear your take again. Since you left Council we hear practically nothing. Even those of us who ARE involved in City government in some way hear pretty much nothing about what's going on in any other part of government.
February 1, 2016 at 11:04 am
Andy, would love for you to start writing again. Have missed your writings. We do need an avenue to know what is going on in the City. I try and read the staff reports and agendas for the different boards, commissions and committees on the City website and Ian Lovejoy does a great job in keeping people up to date on items but I do not really think that the citizens really know what direction our City Manager and Council are taking this our city to. What it tells me at this point is that it is going to be expensive and am very concerned about future taxes and the apparent growth of City administration that has been happening over the last couple years. Seems like City is adding more administrative staff. Thanks for all the info you can provide to us.