New Castle Council Member Launches Monthly Local Lowdown Column

Rifle —"I Think You’re Wrong (But I’m Listening)"

That quote, from Beth Silvers and Sarah Stewart Holland’s book, hangs in the air of every town hall meeting where the room is half-full and the coffee is getting cold. It’s a simple premise, but it requires a lot of nerve to actually say it out loud when the person across from you is your neighbor, your landlord, or the guy who’s been complaining about leaf disposal for three years.

Caitlin Carey knows that nerve. She is a New Castle Town Council member, and she just launched a new monthly column in the Post Independent called "The Local Lowdown." The name sounds like a late-night radio show or a neighborhood rumor mill, but Carey is quick to clarify: "No, it is not a gossip column — but there is plenty to talk about."

She wrote this in the first installment of what will become a recurring feature, appearing on the last Friday of each month. The goal isn’t to spread tea; it’s to build a bridge between the people paying property taxes and the people making decisions about where that money goes.

Carey describes the Local Lowdown as a series of "coffee conversations, cocktail/mocktail events and town hall-like meetings." It’s an attempt to turn the abstract machinery of local government into something you can actually sit across from. She wants to peel back the layers so residents understand why water is metered in one part of town and not another, or how development applications actually work. She even cites a question she’s received repeatedly this year: "Why can’t we do more about the bears?"

It’s a fair question. And it highlights the friction point that Carey is trying to smooth over.

In her column, she admits that asking questions can be hard. Sometimes it’s because we don’t trust the answer. We worry the information coming back from city hall isn’t genuine, or that it doesn’t adequately address our concerns. She says she loves when people stop her on a run, at the store, or in a restaurant to ask those hard questions. She views it as an honor, but also a weight. "When people stop me to ask those questions, they are putting their trust in me in that moment," she wrote.

That trust is the currency of local politics. It’s fragile, and it’s easy to spend it all on a single bad pothole or a confusing zoning change.

The Post Independent published the piece as an editor’s note, marking the start of a new voice in the local conversation. Carey is betting that an "informed community" is an "empowered community." She argues that in a time when life feels chaotically busy, knowing how decisions are made — and how to impact them, is a form of control we can reclaim.

She isn’t promising easy answers for everything. Some topics, like the bears or the budget, are messy. But she’s promising short, digestible conversations. No jargon. No bureaucratic fog. Just the facts of how New Castle ticks, told by someone who sits on the council and actually has to answer for it.

For now, the first installment is just a promise: sit down, ask your questions, and listen to the answer. Even if you think they’re wrong.