YOUR ELi: Do Two Things

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Saturday, May 9, 2015, 12:18 am
By: 
Alice Dreger, Publisher

Today, I’m writing to ask fans of ELi to do two easy things that will help us keep spreading the news and information about East Lansing that we can only get from ELi.

First, though, I want to briefly highlight some of what ELi is doing--and going to be doing--for our community.

Election coverage: As you probably know, East Lansing had an important election this week involving two charter amendments—one on marijuana and the other on public land sales. (Both passed.) We are proud to have brought you useful news and voter guides on both charter amendments in advance of the election, and we look forward to following up on what happens as a result of these changes to our City Charter.

We’re now gearing up to bring you full coverage of the November City Council elections. Three seats will be up for grabs, and from what we are hearing, we expect there will be at least five candidates running. ELi is already bringing you candidate profiles from Karessa Wheeler (see the first and the second).

We will also be bringing you additional news to help educate you before you vote—including useful compliations on how those running for re-election have voted on various issues and where candidates are getting their financing from. That way, when you go to the polls, you’ll have more than those standard glossy mailers to figure out who accords with your beliefs about and desires for your city.

Gardening and Farmers’ Market info: This week we launched our new gardening feature, Digging In, with a fascinating feature from Chris Root on how to eat dandelions. Coming up we’ve got stories for you on how to think about the earth and rain in your garden, as well as stories on specific plants. (Remember: You can also be a writer for us!)

Come June, when the Farmers’ Market opens in Valley Court, we’ll be bringing you a weekly feature that tells you about vendors and how to cook what they’re bringing week by week. (Managing Editor Ann Nichols and I still haven’t figured out what to call that feature. Got an idea? Let us know!)

Embedded reporters: Ann has built up for us a remarkable team of embedded reporters—including MSU student reporters who focus on their interests in sports, the environment, music; permanent residents who report on meetings they attend and places they eat and shop; MSU faculty who write from their disciplinary knowledge; local religious leaders who tell us about what is happening in their faith communities. All told we have had over embedded 50 reporters work for ELi! This model means not only a wide variety of stories you won’t get anywhere else, but knowledge and passion conveyed in those stories.

And more: We’re planning more long-form investigative pieces like The Mercurial Trail, as well as important educational pieces on tax increment financing (TIF), which is lately the source of rare split-votes in Council and many citizens speaking up to Council. And we’re hoping to soon have a dedicated schools reporter who can provide a “School Board Capsule” akin to our “Council Capsule.” (Want to be that person?) There is so much more coming from ELi in the months ahead!

So what can you do? Here’s where I ask you to do those two little things!

  1. Sign up for our weekly emailed news roundup, and ask your friends and neighbors to do the same.  It’s easy! Click here. Signing up means you will get one (only one!) eye-pleasing email from us per week telling you what you might have missed in the last week and letting you know what’s coming up in East Lansing in the week ahead. (If you want to send the link to your friends, copy and paste this: http://eepurl.com/4k4yT )
  2. Sign up to automatically donate a cup of coffee per month to ELi! We don’t really want you to bring us coffee – except maybe on Monday mornings. We want you to give us only once a month what you’d spend on a single cup of coffee—you know, a tall at Biggby ($2) or a Strange Matter cappuccino (about $4; shown above) or a really large mocha latte at Grand River Coffee ($5) or whatever coffee/number you won’t notice disappearing each month but WE will notice appearing as support for us! Again, easy! Click here and at the top of the form, put in the dollar amount and click the box that says “make this recurring (monthly).” Then just fill in the rest and watch while we turn “coffee” into news you can use.

 

And as always, be in touch with your story ideas, what you’d like to write about, your questions, and more! Thank you!

 

 

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