Just realized I used to email my city council rep every week, now I just post on a public forum
Back in 2019 I had the city hall email addresses saved in my phone and I would write one of them every Sunday night about the budget or a pothole on my street. I stopped around March 2020 not because I lost interest but because a neighbor showed me how posting on the ward Facebook group got a faster answer, sometimes from the council member himself. Now I do that instead, and it works, but here is what bugs me. When I emailed, only one staffer saw it and nothing I wrote was public. When I post in that group, the whole ward sees it, and twice now a comment of mine got hidden by a moderator with no clear reason given. So which way is better for keeping speech free, the private email that nobody can moderate but few people hear, or the public post that everyone can see but anyone with mod powers can bury? I honestly go back and forth. What do you all do when you want your local government to hear you without a platform deciding who gets to look?
Me sending emails to city hall in 2019 like I was writing letters to Santa, and honestly both ways feel like shouting into a void sometimes. Public posts at least get eyes on em, but mods burying stuff with zero explanation is sketchy as hell.