Attention Stakeholders

Your assigned homework for 2009 is to get involved in your local government. I don't mean get on a board or run for elected office (unless you want to), simply attend a meeting of the Township Committee, or Board of Adjustment, or Planning Board or even a commission - Cultural Arts, Historic.

You may learn something and, if nothing else, it's an evening's entertainment and the members of the board will wonder why you are there - which never hurts as it keeps them on their toes.

One of the currently popular political words is stakeholder:

a person, group, organization, or system who affects or can be affected by an organization's actions [Wikipedia]
Any person or group with a vested interest in the outcome of a project or plan. [www.nmsu.edu]

And if you think you are not a stakeholder in the actions of your local government, you are mistaken.

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This is a good family activity for those with children from about 13-years-old and older, although I warn you that the questions they will ask later will be hard to answer.

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For my Hillsborough readers, the meeting schedules are usually on the township website: www.hillsborough-nj.org or you can check at the municipal building. You can watch some of these meetings on Channel 25, but it isn't the same as being there.