The Waxhaw Gazette editorial

Well, I'm back home again and in case you were wondering, the North Carolina Zoo up in Asheboro is as grueling to walk as it's always been in 90+ degree heat with a youngin' on your shoulders. I was told the whole trek across two continents was 4-5 miles and that felt pretty accurate with the sun beating down on you.

In other news, I missed last Friday's First Friday, but I had forgotten all about it. But that's probably not all that surprising given how no one from the mysterious STMSPCC contacted me with a heads up (not like the old days, that's for sure). I think the town's website had advance notice of a day or two, so that's pretty good by their standards.

Upon returning, I headed over to The Waxhaw Gazette, where John brings up a topic near & dear to my heart (and referenced in the last paragraph no less). I'm intersperse comments throughout, so hopefully John doesn't mind.

A few issues back reference was made to not getting information about happenings around town. I was commiserating with fellow writers of in the Waxhaw area.

I imagine he's referring to yours truly, as referenced by my earlier post. I'm still looking for that elusive link.

It has recently come to my attention that some people have found that I was not accurate in their timely dissemination of information.

This is the most provocative sentence of the whole piece, but unfortunately, there's no follow-up illustration. Obviously some of John's sources feel they've been giving him tips as to local goings-on. Given the tenor of the rest of the article, I would surmise John disagrees.

Well to set the record straight I want to make sure that no offense was intended but rather a sense of frustration on my part that things were happening around town and after spending the last two and a half years studiously attempting to establish contacts that few if any were following through with keeping me informed. People such as the Mayor, the Town Manager, the Police Chief, the Fire Chief,...etc. and yet things happen and I never get a heads up from any of them. Whether it is crime, or a developer bulldozing or a bridge out... and oh yes, I understand there is a new Fire Chief? ...all things you, my many readers would like to know about but I cant pass it along if I don't know about. ...average readership is consistently between 2,000 to 3,000 per issue... and for a pub that only comes out twice a month and is available only on line, that's a lot of you people reading it.

Besides calling out some town notables for their lack of support, I think he gets an impressive number of people viewing The Waxhaw Gazette. 2000-3000 is far, far beyond anything I pull in, especially considering he oftentimes features some general interest stories with little ties to Waxhaw in my opinion. I wonder how said town notables will take to this more public airing of grievances (Festivus anyone?) when at least some apparently chafed at his earlier rather harmless criticism of the town not providing much notice for upcoming events.

When I first started the Gazette, I have consistently asked for help from the towns people to let me know what's on their minds, what's happening around town and what they want to happen. And quite frankly only a very select few have been supportive, something I find rather disappointing. Waxhaw isn't just my stomping grounds and I would have thought more people would have shown interest in participating. Although I can't do much about the citizens of Waxhaw, I am disappointed that the town itself has shown so little support ....after all I would have thought that a local paper would be considered quite an asset for both business and government. The Edge is gone, the Observer is gone and the Enquirer, well they are what they are...

I only have this to add: if John Tiley at The Waxhaw Gazette is having trouble getting local support, then I imagine that doesn't bode well for my grand aspirations turning this blog into some kind of cash cow. By the way, what "Observer" is he referring to? Charlotte Observer? Some long gone Waxhaw local entitled the "Waxhaw Observer"? On a side note, given their lack of local support, you'd think The Waxhaw Gazette would be well-positioned to recognize my predicament and throw me a bone on occasion and give those 2000-3000 readers a convenient link to my site. But I digress...

Perhaps I'm wrong because as you can plainly see by the lack of advertising support, the business community of Waxhaw have studiously avoided the Gazette. Although I must say I get an awful lot of requests from people wanting free promotions... Over these past two years I have written many articles on South Siders, Rippingtons, Main Street, the Barber Shop, covered Rotary Races etc, etc... yet not one has ever taken an ad. No matter how low the overhead is to run an on line paper, I cannot continue to exist without community support. Both from an input and a financial aspect, sadly things need to change if the Gazette is going to still be publishing come the end of summer.

Sounds like The Waxhaw Gazette is threatening to close its doors without a noticeable increase of financial support from area businesses. Now, I haven't been tied into the local scene for as long as some (and many of you migjht argue that if I'm tied in now it's with the loosest of knots. I've yet to come up with a retort to that), but given the fact he calls out specific businesses for their lack of advertising dollars, I would surmise the threat is valid. It'd be shame to lose it.

Ok, I know things are tough all over... I am publishing this in this edition out of frustration and because quite frankly if things don't start changing... At least I know I'll be in the good company of many who have gone before me trying to bring a voice to the Waxhaw Community.

We'll have to stay tuned to see what happens. I think the frustration is evident based on the number of individuals and businesses taken to task in the editorial.

As for me, I unfortunately but perhaps accordingly get paid zilch & I imagine I receive far less local informational support than John given his apparent readership figures. The main reason I started this blog was to help fill a void because I had no idea what was going on in my town & there didn't really seem to be a good resource to keep up with things. I'm having a hard time keeping up given my other responsibilities, but I do what I can. I've got a stack of Waxhaw Exchange's cluttering my bag as they all contain at least one article I wanted to comment on or dig into a little farther. Maybe when I get some vacation time.