IN THEIR WORDS: What public officials do for us

The making and putting out of fires has always been with us. The Romans created what might’ve been the first municipal-type fire department. Later, night-fire watches were instituted in colonial America’s larger cities. A devastating fire in Boston in 1679 led to the formation of the first paid fire department in North America, with the first volunteer fire company formed in Philadelphia in 1736. Its first volunteer chief? Benjamin...

Education, particularly K-12, is being transformed at the federal level, with programs cut, shifted to the states, or absorbed into other federal departments. But most of the work shaping children's education occurs at the state, city and town levels on local boards of education. In this episode of IN THEIR WORDS: What public officials do for us, we are joined by a 17-year veteran of a community BoE, Penny Rashin, who was bitt...

They say all politics is local. And you can't get much more local than the county, one of America’s original forms of government that dates back to 1634 when the first county governments (known as shires) were established in Virginia.

In this episode of IN THEIR WORDS, we're joined by Janeé Hanzlick, Johnson County (KS) Board of County Commissioners, District 4. Commissioner Hanzlick explains how county governmen...

Mention of the word “sheriff” may conjure up iconic names of fabled lawmen like Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok and Pat Garrett. But the role of a sheriff actually dates back to 700 AD in England and came to the US with the early colonists. Today, more than 3,000 sheriffs serve in 47 states (Dare we say, who knew?)

In this episode of IN THEIR WORDS: What public officials do for us, we are honored to be joined b...

Ever wonder what a coroner or medical examiner actually does? Bobbi Jo O’Neal, coroner of Charleston County, SC, explains that the job goes well beyond what we’ve witnessed in true-crime homicide dramas. From identifying cause and manner of death, to working with families through grief, assisting law enforcement, or playing a pivotal role in battling the opioid crisis, coroners provide essential community public services every day....

DAs serve a vital role in our court system by ensuring justice and equality under the law for all citizens. In this episode of IN THEIR WORDS: What public officials do for us, CITIZENARTS is honored to spotlight William “Fitz” Fitzpatrick, the eight-time elected DA of Onondaga County in the State of NY that includes Syracuse, one of the state’s largest cities, and is part of a judicial system that is among the oldest continuing cou...

With so much news centered on laws being passed by state legislatures, many with heated controversy, we turned to the 10th Amendment of the US Constitution:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

So anything not explicitly allowed or prohibited by the federal government is up to &q...

In the newest episode of the CITIZENARTS’ series IN THEIR WORDS: What public officials do for us, we focus our lens on the U.S. judicial system and meet Justice Adrienne Grover of the California 6th District Court of Appeal. Justice Grover -- a self-described “nonjudgmental judge” -- speaks definitively and inspiringly in a time of mounting misinformation, distortion and hyperbole aimed at the role of law and our judiciary.

What does a state Secretary of State do? The headlines are all about certifying elections. But there’s a lot more to it. IN THEIR WORDS: What public officials do for us, a new podcast series from CITIZENARTS, kicks off with Steve Hobbs, the Secretary of State of the great State of Washington. In a candid, informative, sometimes provocative conversation, Secretary Hobbs discusses his many roles – from helping to ensure election inte...

Here’s CITIZENARTS founder Jim Gabbe with a word on our newest podcast series, IN THEIR WORDS: What public officials do for us. In interviews with key local and federal “public servants,” we shed light on how their work may be often little understood but has an immediate, direct impact on our daily lives.

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