Election's over, but we'd still love to hear from you

First of all, let me apologize to the many of you who wanted your voices heard this election season just concluded but were denied.

In DuPage County alone, there were dozens upon dozens of letters we simply ran out of time and space to publish. Scores of letters ran exclusively on dailyherald.com. And nearly every day, we dropped one of the columnists on our Opinion page to create extra space for the surfeit of letters we received, covering every conceivable point in the political spectrum.

We don't have an official count, but companywide, we estimate that we ran in the neighborhood of 800 letters to our Fence Post column the month before the Nov. 4 election, with the vast majority of them pertaining to the presidential, congressional and state legislative races and local referendums.

People still have some views to share in the wake of the election, but we're already seeing a drop-off.

That's why I'm writing today - to invite all of you to write - especially those of you who maybe have thought about it but were afraid to act. True, we don't have a presidential election to weigh in on, but the burning national issues always will be there. Personally, though, I have a real soft spot for those of you who want to express your views on the local issues. It's a great way for the newspaper to get a handle on what's important to you. In one recent case, in fact, our letter writers already have inspired some additional news coverage.

It started with a passionate letter on behalf of the users, many of them seniors, of the community garden plots in Naperville. At issue is whether to move the plots somewhere else, creating space for additional athletic fields for Naperville Central High School, landlocked with considerably less open space than your typical high school. The issue resonated with me because I graduated from Central, grew up not far from the garden plots and am well aware of their popularity. After reading the garden plotter's letter, I was kind of swayed in his direction. Yeah, I thought, why do they have to kick the gardeners out of there? That's not right. They've been there a long time.

Then we got another letter, equally persuasive, pointing out the fact that Central, in the midst of a major renovation, is going to lose some acreage to a nearby cemetery. They already have to share space in Knoch Park with youth sports teams and others, plus they sometimes spend more than an hour traveling to other fields in town. Gee, good points, I thought, now seeing the other side's point of view.

We've done several news stories on the issue, but I started musing: Why not see if we can find a couple people on either side of the issue who would agree to write essays on their respective views, not terribly unlike what we had in Fence Post? But we'd present both sides of the issue on the same page and provide the necessary background to put it all into focus.

As is often the case when inspiration hits, I find someone else to do the work. I turned to Naperville Editor Bob Smith and shared my vision. The result is a special presentation in the Naperville/Aurora/Lisle Neighbor section on Saturday. (And for those of you who live outside that area, fear not: I'm already conjuring up a similar project on a big issue involving some other high schools.)

So if you have an opinion on the garden plot, lights and new turf at Glenbard West, or, what the heck, want to write about the election fallout, we'd love to hear from you.

Next week, I'll provide a few tips about writing to the editor.

jdavis@dailyherald.com