Number One.
We will not seize the spring. We will rent a page.
A weekly column — Bombeck’s length, not a flag. Question. Answer. Document. If the source is absent, the question does not sail. Locals will fund the pilot by public subscription. Three weeks. Half a page. A few thousand, not a war chest. Should the letters prove genuine, we continue.
Every campaign on the local ballot will be offered the corridor beside that page, same rate, same week. They may duel in the ads. They will not command the questions.
City and county may answer when asked. They will not underwrite the midterm trial. No silent patron. No machine. The name at the bottom is the reader who paid for the ink.
Kern first. Then, if the stream is clean, the same standing order in the next harbor.
Make it so.