Five years ago last week, on June 1, I was lying barely conscious in an emergency room; it would be nearly a week before I could stand up without assistance. That was a milestone on a long midlife journey of breakdown and recovery that brought me back to these pages, and back to a role in journalism that I had thought would no longer exist by the time I hit 50. So when I read or hear, as one often does, that local news is dying . it hits a little different for me.
In 2016, as I was working myself to death, my non-journalism career was deeply entwined with City Hall. I labored alongside Steve Adler, the Austin Transportation Department, and a cast of hundreds to position Austin to win the U.S. Department of Transportation s Smart City Challenge. (That honor went to our swing-state friends in Columbus, Ohio, although Austin did get some consolation prizes.) And I had just presented to Council the final report of its Task Force on Community Engagement, which I chaired. Its top recomm