Keeping with my theme of stealing inspiration for the site, I know the phrase “local matters” isn’t original. Ironically some folks at Tampa Bay Times made a t-shirt with the slogan. I couldn’t find reference to it via web search, doesn’t look like it’s anything TBT actually used in marketing. But I couldn’t think of another way of expressing what I want this site to convey. I believe we get ourselves out of this mess rebuilding from the bottom up. And our local governments are at the center of that. We need to be at the center of that.
As I noted last week, I checked off a big to-do in migrating the site to a new server. The site is a self-hosted instance of WordPress. This version of the server is tailored to my workflow vs being a one-click Virtual Private Server, so I can iterate on the custom code I’m using. Specifically for maps. Previously the Future Land Use/Zoning map was a combination of page templates and some custom JavaScript. It wasn’t portable or easily replicated with other layers. I’ve since migrated it to a custom WP block. The next iteration will allow me to add my own layers and custom style so I can create and embed more interactive maps. I have a few in the queue that I think will be helpful in planning discussions. It really is my goal for the site to be more informative than opinion. The FLU/Zoning Map is the most visited page on the site.
The site got a refresh as well. It will continue to be a work in progress but I think I’ve made some huge improvements. With the server properly configured so I can easily work locally and push changes to the live site, I can iterate on tools to speed up the workflow. The less time copy/pasting and manually editing, the more time I can spend on researching, writing and editing.
Speaking of writing and editing, I want to be clear that I do not use any “AI” for anything posted on the site. They are all my words. That is not to say I haven’t used LLMs in developing the tools I use. I have used GitHub CoPilot and Claude to help me with the script I use to parse the agenda every week. I don’t use it to summarize the text for me, I used it to help me write regular expressions to match redundant phrases (mostly legalese and notes about motion history), but the language otherwise is exact to the draft posted on Onbase. I’ve also leaned on it for help with my maps blocks and getting myself out of some permissions issues on the server. But the words are all mine.
And for the record, the name “Tampa Monitor”, probably could have been better. I wanted to give a nod to old time newspapers but was thinking about data too, and instead I think it comes across as hall monitor.
