Last call for editorial board applicants

Wanted: Someone brave enough to step into the “tough act to follow” realm. Must be fair-minded, willing to look at all sides of an issue and share his-or-her thoughts with three others once a week, for one year.

There’s no pay. Just the honor of being part of a team serving as a watchdog for our wonderful, unique community.

And have we mentioned it’s an election year?

For the second year in a row, the Enterprise-Record will select a member of the community to serve on our editorial board. This is not a writing position; what we’re looking for is someone who can provide input as we discuss possible editorial topics (and our “Hits and Misses”) in a weekly meeting. We are asking for a commitment for the next 12 months, with the “community member” continuing as an annual rotating position.

Whoever is selected will have one very tough act to follow. Our first community member, John Blacklock, has epitomized everything we could have wanted in our first community board member.

His institutional knowledge of the workings of local governments and Butte County history has been an invaluable addition to our team; more importantly, he’s brought an innate sense of fairness to our discussions. And that’s a big one for any editorial board — we not only want to be able to explain our position on things, but to accurately reflect the other sides of the issue as well.

And this is a critical year for local decision-making. One of the first tasks our new community member will undertake will be joining us for endorsements, since it is an election year. We plan to interview candidates for county supervisor seats and county assessor in the weeks ahead, with invitations to go out by early April. Later this year, you can add Chico city council to that list.

Again, there’s no pay.

There’s probably not even much in the way of thanks, except from us. You can, however, rest assured that you’ll be playing a big part in looking out for our community interests at a time we desperately need more level-headed people to care.

To apply, just send an email to editor Mike Wolcott at mwolcott@chicoer.com, and tell us why you think you’d be a good fit for our editorial board. Tell us a little about yourself, your history with any local organizations or political groups, and what you see as some of the more pressing issues of our time (both local and national). We’ll accept applications through March 31, and hope to have our newest board member’s name atop the masthead of this page sometime in early-to-mid April.

We have received some fantastic applications already; we’re hoping to have a few more names in the mix before we start responding and moving ahead with our decisionmaking process.

Whoever is selected will join E-R editor Mike Wolcott, longtime Paradise Post editor and E-R reporter Rick Silva, and Chico State journalism instructor Mandy Feder-Sawyer on our editorial board. Mandy stepped aboard several months ago when a staff member of our editorial board left for another job, and we’re thrilled that she’s agreed to stay in this role for an additional full one-year term.

There are never a shortage of opinions in Butte County. We remain committed to our duty of fairly presenting factbased opinions on the biggest news topics of the day. If you’d like to help us do that, here’s your chance.

This is not a writing position; what we’re looking for is someone who can provide input as we discuss possible editorial topics in a weekly meeting. We are asking for a commitment for the next 12 months, with the “community member” continuing as an annual rotating position.