Does Your State or Local Government Have a Great Story to Share?
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Connecting state and local government leaders
Route Fifty’s door is always open to interesting proposals detailing challenges, opportunities and solutions that other state capitols, city halls and county administration buildings can learn from.
Attention state and local government leaders and practitioners (or anyone who works with state or local governments): At Route Fifty, we always like to be a news platform where state, county and municipal jurisdictions can learn from each other across jurisdictional boundaries.
That can involve a whole host of things, from outlining best practices and case studies to detailing challenges, challenges and solutions. Chances are, there are peers in other state and local jurisdictions that are dealing with a common situation or considering similar options on how to proceed.
At Route Fifty, we’ve featured numerous guest articles from state and local elected officials plus other leading government leaders, practitioners and those who work with the state and local public sector space.
In 2015, we featured contributed articles from officials like Ron Galperin, the Los Angeles city controller; Kirsten Wyatt, the assistant city manager in West Linn, Oregon, and ELGL co-founder; William Vajda, the city manager of Marquette, Michigan; Dow Constantine, the King County executive in Washington state; Traci L. Hughes, director of the Office of Open Government in the District of Columbia; Deb Socia, executive director of the Next Century Cities coalition; and Melvin L. "Kip" Holden, mayor-president of the city of Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge Parish in Louisiana.
Earlier this month, we featured an article about transit-oriented development from Bill Harrison, the mayor of Fremont, California.
In most cases, those ideas for guest articles were sent directly to our editors.
For 2016, we’d like the expand that group of guest contributors who can offer Route Fifty’s national audience insights and ideas about their own jurisdiction or area of policy focus within the state and local government space.
Here's what we’re looking for, in most cases:
- Guest articles that are between 850 and 1,200 words.
- Guest articles that feature a great idea, innovation or new tool.
- Guest articles that feature a strong case study of how a community, government agency or public official addressed a challenge and came to a solution.
- Guest articles that outline a best practices framework that other jurisdictions can learn from.
- Guest articles that have the stats and data that can detail the problem, challenge and / or solution.
- Visual storytelling—photos, videos, charts and maps—are often handy.
Although that’s our general framework, we’re open to outside-the-box approaches, too.
And while larger cities are often in the spotlight because they naturally attract attention, we’re always looking for interesting, below-the-radar stories coming from smaller- to medium-sized jurisdictions, too.
Here’s what to do: Email your ideas to submissions@routefifty.com.
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