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A few months back certain soured souls, disappointed in the direction this blog was taking at that time (and still is, actually), floated the idea that The Tattler was in some sort of a readership death spiral, had tragically lost its way, and that many of those who had loyally gleaned their local news here over the years were fleeing for other venues.
Which is kind of a ridiculous claim if you think about it. If you want local news there is no other venue. The Sierra Madre Weekly is gone, the Mountain Views News succumbed to dementia long ago, the Pasadena Star News now has a staff of impoverished reporters only nominally larger than what we have here, and one time local blog mainstay Bill Coburn has sadly devolved into a Facebook chatterbox.
In other words, The Tattler wins by default.
So yes, they were wrong. They almost always are. Because now, for the first time ever in its storied nine year existence, The Tattler has actually received more than 100,000 hits in one single month. A lot for a small city blog that covers the sorts of stuff we do.
Of course, I would like to be able to tell you that this is because of a sudden mad surge of interest in all things involving Sierra Madre, but I cannot make that claim. Mostly because it wouldn't be true.
Instead, it is those articles on the miserable state of our badly compromised national government that is packing them in. Actually, it was one in particular that just sort of took off all on its own. Went "viral" as they say in the Internet game. Here is how that moment went with those reader numbers.
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I had no idea I could do something like that. Apparently somebody reposted a Tattler article on a Facebook page of some political note, others shared it with similar like-minded venues, and it just sort of took off from there. It even caught on overseas, with considerable interest coming from both Russia and France. Of all places. Vive la liberté de l'internet!
It was an interesting couple of days here at Tattler World HQ. Now if I could do this on a regular basis I might actually be on to something. I'd even be able to finally raise my advertising rates. Which, as you know, are already so high I have yet to find a single taker.
Some folks do remain unhappy with me over the national coverage. But look at it this way, it does bring in a lot more people than the local stuff does. About three times as much in most cases. More in this case.
However, the good news is that, as far as I can tell at least, a decent amount of them are now coming back for stories on things like Sierra Madre's Library, or some of the community preservation issues that get covered here. Which is a good thing I believe. Hopefully you feel the same.
And if you don't? Well, you know what they say. There is no greater waste of time than worrying about what people think.
Did Sierra Madre's City Manager Get Himself Into Trouble?
I hope it's not true. We like Gabe. He is communicative, transparent in the good sense, and is open to considering all sorts of our nonsense. But you know what is really remarkable about the guy? He has a genuine sense of humor. The guy is flat out funny when he wants to be.
When is the last time someone working at City Hall had one of those? Like, never? It has always been such a mirthless place. You'd think humor would be a requirement there. You know, at least as a kind of survival strategy.
So it is with some trepidation that I read the following grimness in one of the agendas for tomorrow evening's City Council fun fest (link).
Now, and as you must be aware, those closed session things are very hush hush. It is where the City Attorney does her work, and you know how Barstow gets. But there is a clue as to what might be going down there, and it is contained within that "Government Code Section" number. Apparently "54957" can be an unhappy one.
I Googled this up and discovered the following (link). Click on it to enlarge.
All of that could be interpreted in many different ways, of course. And while I have some theories, they're not so good that I would want to put them into writing here. You also know that we'll probably never find out what this is all about.
But it certainly doesn't appear to be a good thing.
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