Plus, it’s a good opportunity to pay a little closer attention to local politics. My town is getting pretty hot the last few years, with some major controversies

• siting for a new high school, with hundreds of millions in state and federal funding at stake, and a huge impact on the community for the next half century. They’re racing to open it in time for the coming school year, but the site is still controversial
• summer closure to vehicles of the shops and restaurant area was a huge hit during COViD period, but now some people want to “go back to normal”
• huge arguments for and against our strong mayor able to get things done
• the town bought contaminated land for Pennies but trying to figure out what to do with it means figuring out how to clean it up
• we have a great sports facility with a large number of astroturfed fields but “the carpet is scuffed and worn”. Can we afford to get it re-carpeted? Is there an advantage to going back to grass?
• were having a lot of population growth and want to encourage higher density housing in the center of town near shops and transit, but how much can/should we try to control that? A neighborhood near me just got a couple of six story apartment blocks thrown down in the middle of much smaller duplexes and three deckers: is that good or bad? Technically it’s still a walk to the town center and it’s on a new trail, so that’s good, but it’s way out of scale for the neighborhood and would be better closer in with other buildings that size, so I’m glad I don’t live there. I see this one house is now abutting a brick wall almost as tall as the house