Option to Support

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Its Black Friday, so let's talk business.

When I started this page, I wanted to provide more in-depth coverage and behind the scenes details that you would not know about had I not put it out there to read.

I have largely done that and the page is doing great. I did not really have plans to try to collect money from this or anything like that, however, after a recent conversation with some friends and family, it is time to do that a bit.

Providing you all with all the stories and details takes A LOT of time. In the last few weeks, I have probably spent about 30 hours a week doing research, reading documents and emails, etc. I have no less than 15,000 emails from the BOCC. Some of those are ones I have gotten. Others were sent to me by other people who have done their own requests.

It is A LOT of work, but it is also getting more expensive. I have paid a few hundred dollars so far in public records requests and likely more money in the future. All that is fine. The county/cities have the ability to charge fees. Sometimes I push back... most often I just pay the fee. All good.

But it is still an added expense beyond my time, which is actually the most valuable asset in all of this. I spent 3 hours Wednesday night reading about submerged land leases for an upcoming story. Fun stuff.

What I do not want to do is hide this page behind a paywall, like many newspapers and other companies do. I want everyone to be able to read what is going on, as that is how we stay informed about the issues.

So what I decided to do is open up subscriptions. There will be two options: Monthly and yearly. I am not looking to get rich off this, so prices right now are $10 a month or $100 a year.

Here are the tiers and what is included:

Monthly - $10 per month

• Articles emailed to you when published
• Access to the exclusive Facebook Group

Annual - $100 per year

• Articles emailed to you when published
• Access to the exclusive Facebook Group
• Free The Citrus Insider T-shirt.

The cool thing about this is that I have it set up to email you when I publish an article. You will be able to read these in your inbox rather than finding it on the Facebook page. This means you will never miss anything that is posted.

Also, the Facebook Group. My plan for this is to give exclusive access to subscribers. This will allow me to share upcoming story ideas, get feedback, get news tips and just build a community type environment. You will get a behind the scenes look of what is to come.

There is also a single donation option available for those that want to do just a one time donation.

I have some ideas to add business sponsors as well. Not ready to announce those just yet as I am still testing some things, but this will help businesses with marketing as well.

Now, the rules of all of this.

First, just because someone is a sponsor does not mean I view them more favorably. Those that know me, know that I do not play favorites. If someone is involved in something that comes up as an article at some point, I am not going to hold back just because they subscribe or donate. That is not me. If needed, I will call them out just as I would anyone else. Subscribing does not give anyone a pass.

Elected officials - for transparency, I will not allow elected officials or those that file to run to be active subscribers. This includes any businesses that they own. Again, I do not want people to think I am writing stories or making posts to favor certain people and not favor others. Optics is everything here. Even though the public won't see the full subscriber list, just know no electeds are on it.

Businesses/Developers - This is similar to the above. Just because they sponsor does not mean that I will view them more favorably. If it is worth writing about, then I will write about it, regardless of who it is about. Again, I will not play favorites. So if a developer wants to donate/subscribe/etc, then go for it, but do not expect special treatment.

So that pretty much covers it. If you desire to subscribe, you can do that at the link below and get the perks that come with that. There is a tab to choose between monthly and yearly. If you choose not to subscribe, nothing changes. You will still be able to read as you always have been.