Reid Williams

Dec 19, 2024 | nowkalamazoo.org | Reid Williams

Editor’s Note: This story is part of a collaboration with Southwest Michigan Second Wave. You can read their story here. Talk to the neighbors and most have a story about the traffic on this section of West Main Street as it heads downhill toward downtown Kalamazoo. It’s a fact of life for them that shapes their habits and hobbies, like wearing safety vests when mowing the front lawn or tending to crash victims. It’s noisy at rush hour, especially with high volumes traveling at high speed.

Nov 5, 2024 | nowkalamazoo.org | Reid Williams |Reid worked

If you’ve been around for a few election cycles, you might have already told a younger person in your orbit, “You know, there was a time when we knew who won before we went to bed on election night.”Oh, how things have changed, from technology to close races to the flood of noise on social media and TV. And yet, there’s a system in place to handle it all. To save you some scrolling, let’s be clear up front: We don’t know precisely when we’ll know who the 47th U.S. president will be.

Oct 28, 2024 | nowkalamazoo.org | Reid Williams |Reid worked

We’ve said loudly, even put it in print, that we don’t think highly of following political candidates from event to event just to perform stenography for their speeches. It’s the same line of thought that we put into our politics coverage in general — focus on policies, which have an impact on people, but not the “he said, she said” that too often veers away from impacts of policy, isn’t fact-checked, and forces us to look at politics as a sporting event instead of civics-in-action.

Oct 16, 2024 | nowkalamazoo.org | Ben Jones |Reid Williams |Reid worked

Imagine this: a candidate is running to become a judge. This candidate also happens to be a lawyer with ties to a prominent local law firm. Is that a conflict of interest? Should the candidate be disqualified from being a judge? It’s not an abstract question. In fact, it comes from a reader interested in candidates currently running for office in Kalamazoo County. We’re declining to name specific candidates in order to avoid promoting one candidate over another.

Oct 11, 2024 | nowkalamazoo.org | Reid Williams |Reid worked

The purpose of the Voters’ Forum event we held on Tuesday was to inspire attendees to speak up about what they want our local government to work on. With election season in full swing, it’s a perfect time for us as a community to develop a list of priorities that we want to see action and progress on. And we’re off to a great start.