Remember NewtonForum.org?
It seems that not many people do.
Although I hadn’t been to the site in a while, I was reminded about Newton Forum today, on the eve of election day, because the blog — started by former City Council candidate Chris Pitts — debuted on March 1, the date of the 2016 Massachusetts presidential primary: the first time I had a chance to vote against Donald Trump.*
The idea, Pitts said at the time was to have a transparent site, where everyone used their real name and there would be one new post by a different community blogger every day of the month.
As I know better than many, maintaining a community blog with all volunteers is not easy to do. And now, with the national election nearly in our rear view mirror and a municipal election one year away, it appears that Newton Forum, after a few missteps along the way, is limited to a handful of posts each month by a very small circle of contributors and with few, if any, comments.
Maybe Newton Forum will rebound once we the get closer to next year’s election. I hope it does because we need more, not fewer places, for people to weigh in. If not, we should at least give Chris Pitts credit for giving the idea a try.
*I voted for John Kasich then.
