Tag Archives: West St. Paul Reader

Art, Business & Marketing, Sporting, Technology

Creating the Content I Want to See

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“One of my New Years resolutions is to make the content I wish to see in the world.” –Amanda Litman

I love this quote. Creating the content I want to see in the world is the heart behind a lot of the work I do. It’s why I’ve done book projects, why I started West St. Paul Reader, why I make postcards and stickers for West St. Paul Reader, and it’s why I started my latest venture Frozen Friday.

I’m thinking about yet another venture thanks to that idea.

The challenge of all these things is making them worth your time. Sometimes creative work is its own reward. Sometimes you just need to do it, and it’s not about getting paid.

But other times, and depending on how many of these projects you have, there is a need to earn something. I find myself frequently in that spot. As a freelancer, there are enough demands on my time and I can’t do everything for free. Side projects can consume my day, and like everyone else I have bills to pay.

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Employment, Twin Cities

7 Stories in 5 Days

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So it’s been a long week. Yeah, there was that whole political tsunami on Sunday. Feels like an eon since then. (And the energy… feels like it’s only ramped up since then, for what it’s worth.) But I’m more talking about locally and my reporting with West St. Paul Reader.

This week we ran seven stories in five days.

Multiple stories that we broke and some exclusives. It’s big stuff like a long-time restaurant leaving and a 115-year-old historic mansion torn down, and what should have been simpler stories like a library renovation—that some how drew the ire of anti-library trolls (BTW, did an update on that story Friday night, because book nerds love library plans!).

It’s been a lot.

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Business & Marketing, Education, Introspection

Reflecting on 20 Years

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It’s been an incredibly busy spring season. I’m just now catching my breath at the end of June. I’ve had a few milestones—including 20 years of business, five years of local news, and a kid graduating high school—that make me a little introspective.

The past two months have included a member drive, a five-year anniversary, a bike safety event, a bike ride, a parade, a mural unveiling, a massive four-day community event, launching a summer contest, a high school graduation, a grad party, the 20th anniversary of my business, and my brain has now shut down so I can’t remember anything else.

Whew. That’s an understatement.

So when I get a moment, I’m reflective. A few thoughts…

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Employment, Introspection, Twin Cities

West St. Paul Reader: Five Year Anniversary

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Five years ago today I launched West St. Paul Reader with the first-ever post, a recap of a City Council meeting.

That first post really epitomizes the work we do: It’s narrowly focused on what happens in our first-ring suburb. It celebrates what’s happening in the community. It serves as an archive to mark what happened, when, and why. I just spent some time reflecting on that first post five years later.

Reflecting on Five Years

We’re doing a whole five-year anniversary member drive with an audacious goal of 50 members to mark five years by 5/25. But more than flogging a member drive and trying to bring in new members, today I’m trying to reflect on five years of this work.

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Employment, Twin Cities

West St. Paul Reader Member Drive

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I’m in the midst of a member drive for my local, neighborhood news site, West St. Paul Reader. We do hyper-local news—like City Council, new restaurants in town, and local election coverage. We’re supported by members—neighbors, really (it’s a small suburb)—hence a year-end push to grow our support.

So far it’s a big success. We hit our initial goal last week—25 new or upgraded members—and then hit one of our ongoing goals—200 total members. Now we’re pushing for 225 members and then our big goal of 250 members—when we’ll add coverage of local school board meetings.

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Twin Cities

Explore West St. Paul Days

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We had a pretty fun few days with the first ever Explore West St. Paul Days event. I wrote over on West St. Paul Reader about my gratitude at seeing this community come together:

“Best of all, people kept exclaiming when they recognized West St. Paul Reader. I know we have a lot of supporters, but I didn’t expect that. People kept shouting out ‘thank you’ for our coverage and telling us how much they appreciate neighborhood news. It never gets old hearing that kind of support, and getting it in the middle of a parade was an experience I’ll never forget.”

What a fun few days.

Thankfully, we captured the magic through pictures, hiring a local student photographer to cover both the parade and the West St. Paul Rider community bike ride. We also managed to create a new postcard.

(Photo by Sam Amundson)

Employment, Twin Cities

Support Local News

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It’s my birthday. If you’d like to help me celebrate, consider supporting one of my projects and becoming a member of West St. Paul Reader through Patreon.

What Is West St. Paul Reader?

Back in 2019 I started reporting on local news here in West St. Paul. I attend city council meetings, I find out what’s being built on the corner, I low-key bug people, I interview candidates, I research history, I take a lot of pictures, I try to celebrate the amazing things and people in this town. I can be a very dorky tour guide.

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Education, Politics, Twin Cities

School Board Elections Matter

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A school board candidate threatened me with a slander lawsuit last week. I guess that’s part of community news now? (See my update at the bottom of this post for more.)

But let’s not focus on him. (My conversation on race with the only person of color still running is a much better story to focus on.)

Big election on Tuesday—lots of school boards at stake. Hope you’re ready to vote.

I put together a voter’s guide and candidate chart for the nine candidates vying for three seats in my school district, ISD 197, plus a levy renewal (yeah, it’s a lot):

It’s an off-year election and nobody turns out for school board elections (seriously: the last contested election had a turnout of 5%!).

But have you seen the headlines? People raiding school board meetings? The unhinged comments? Books being banned across the country? It’s wild.

These elections matter.

This election is feeling a bit like 2016, when everyone assumed things would work out and we all sat back and waited. And then woke up on November 9 in shock.

So vote.

Find out what’s on the ballot in your area and vote.

Tell your neighbors, tell your friends, and vote.

(And maybe support local news too. Here’s how to support my efforts.)

Art, Employment, Twin Cities

Two Years of Local News

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Two years ago I launched the hyper-local news site West St. Paul Reader. After a few years of getting involved in my local community, starting to write about it here, and then a good several months of writing about City Council, I decided to take it to the next level.

I remember a few months before I pulled the trigger, a friend asked if I’d consider spinning off a site focused on West St. Paul. “No way,” I scoffed.

And here I am. Not only did I launch that site, but it’s working. I was able to get it up and running thanks to the support of 68 people on Kickstarter. Today I’ve got 82 people giving monthly or annual support through Patreon.

That ongoing support really makes this endeavor possible. I spent a lot of time attending City Council meetings, writing stories, taking pictures, and more. I couldn’t do that if I weren’t getting paid. So those folks are making local news happen.

To celebrate, I commissioned a local artist to create an exclusive West St. Paul postcard. It’s available to my Patreon members.

"The Road Home" by Sarah Lew

It’s pretty incredible that I’ve been doing local news for two years and that I get to create cool stuff like that postcard.

Thanks to everyone who makes this possible.