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City Manager Dave Ruller of Kent, Ohio: using a blog to teach

Kent Ohio City Manager Dave RullerDave Ruller is City Manager of Kent, Ohio and maintains a blog at Kent360.

Last week he published a blog post titled Managing snow and it caught my eye because it’s a good example of What to Blog for a local government leader: Use your blog to teach about a service, program, or department.

After what turned out to be a terrific Fall, I guess Winter had to eventually arrive, and in case you hadn’t noticed — it’s here.  The official start of Winter is still a couple of weeks off but that doesn’t seem all that relevant at the moment with snow piling up outside my window as I type this post.  We’ve got ourselves a good old fashioned snowfall with big lake effect flakes piling up and creating havoc with our streets. 

He then goes into great detail about the city’s snow-related policies, since there were some significant changes in the past year. Most important, he uses an informal conversational tone in his writing that makes it a much more interesting read for a local citizen.

We do our best to break a truck off the primaries to punch a hole through the middle of the neighborhood streets (often just a single lane) but until the weather breaks and gives us a chance to catch up, the neighborhoods will be challenging to get through. 

I love that line: "break a truck off the primaries to punch a hole…" You just know that wasn’t written by a communications staffer. A voice of authenticity indeed.

Here’s my little treatise on why using a blog in this way is important for a local government leader:

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