About City Buzz

What is the goal of this blog?

News has always been a two-way street. Reporters write the story. Readers respond to the story.

Today the Internet has made the conversation much easier as readers can comment on stories online before they even appear in the paper.

My hope for the City Buzz blog is to open a more instantaneous communication with readers and find out what you care about in Lodi and Galt.

Every reporter has had at least one experience where they have checked their phone messages or e-mail and had a message from a reader who has an opinion or anecdote that would have been great to include in an already printed story.

Through this blog, I hope to put out snippets ahead of time, whether it is issue stories or breaking news, and see what questions you have. Of course, for the full story, you will still need to check out the Web site or the paper the next day. But this is a way to give you an idea about what is going on in the city right when it is happening.

I’d love for you to check the blog when you can and comment on what interests you. Besides breaking news stories and photos, I will post interesting links I find on the Web, stories from cities around the nation that have similar issues, secondary information like documents and audio and ask questions to start the dialog.

Also, it is a place for you to post information. Do you have some documents on a city issue? Got a blog entry you or someone else wrote about an issue? You can post them as a comment, and I might reference them in a follow-up post.

So hope to hear from you soon. Happy commenting

About me:

I’m the City Hall reporter for Lodi and Galt at the Lodi News-Sentinel. I cover a wide variety of issues including redevelopment, the Wal-Mart debate, the ag cluster zone, Delta Greens, the General Plan, city meetings and the occasional weather or parade story.

I’m from St. Louis, MO, and went to school at the University of Missouri-Columbia. I have interned at The Omaha World-Herald and The Bakersfield Californian.

Having never lived anywhere besides the corn-filled Midwest, I am always looking for new adventures in California. So far my favorite things are California fruit — which I have told all my friends at home how delicious it is — camping near the beach, kayaking down the Mokelumne, exploring San Francisco and enjoying juice/tea/coffee/beer in this beautiful weather. Let me know of any fun activities I should try.

I am also always looking for new story ideas or unique angles for ongoing city stories. If you have any ideas, please leave a comment on the blog, or you can contact me at maggiec@lodinews.com or at 209-369-7035.