Over the last few days, the Owl has been contacted by a few residents about the demise of the Weston Town Crier’s print version (RIP as of May 5, 2022, I believe) and if political platforms and endorsements would be published here in the Weston Owl for the upcoming May 7 Weston Town Election. So here’s the plan, because I know and you know that the Owl is not the Crier and we (that is the royal “we”) are not unbiased.

Town volunteers up for election or re-election may publish their platform here without Owl editorial comment. Unless you swear and then I might have to just clean that up because heaven knows I never swear. Also, what are you doing swearing in your political platform? I will be setting a special section for Election platforms when I finish wrestling with WordPress which hates me. I will publish a platform/candidate statement only once.

• All town volunteers up for election/re-election will get a Q&A (contested elections will have all candidates on the same Q&A). They can elect (haha) to answer or not. See last year’s example from the Select Board race.
• Endorsements will not be published in the Owl. I have thought long and hard about this one. I have to say that I always hated the endorsement page of the Crier (also known as Letters to the Editor). They have an unintended popularity contest vibe and this is not a popularity contest. Please feel free to use your own facebook page or the still-breathing but barely Town Crier for that.
• The Owl will not be endorsing any candidates on this page. If you know me personally, I will tell you what I think.

I think that’s it. Now, this Owl needs to go to a soccer field sideline for another kind of contest.

Happy Weekend!