Patch Mayor Robert Riechel Strives to Share Information

Robert Riechel has been writing for Patch for about five or six years. His interest in local government and community organizations shapes his writing. His profile on Patch lists his civic involvement, which includes serving as the City of San Bruno’s Trustee to the San Mateo County Mosquito and Vector Control District. He also is a member of the San Bruno Citizens Crime Prevention Committee.

Q. Tell me your favorite thing about San Bruno?
It’s a small community. We’ve got forty thousand and some odd people. We’ve got a few big businesses here Google YouTube and Walmart (Walmart’s e-commerce site is in San Bruno).
The people get to know each other, the school system is good, the park system is good.
It’s just a nice, little, semi-quiet community.

Q. How do you approach writing for Patch?
I don't write a whole lot from scratch. I am getting press releases from all sorts of people almost daily and i just basically put that in an article, I give them credit for it and I give them one more opportunity to get their information out. The city puts the council agenda packet online and sometimes that runs upwards of 100 pages. I pick the background on some of the items if there is something very important to the citizens. I sometimes put four pages on that. For the people who are concerned, they can come to the (meeting).
Parking is a big issue for us.

Q. As a citizen journalist, there is a lot of talk or noise about fake news and citizen journalism...can you talk about how you view the discussion?

I write from scratch very little. I repost whatever (organizations and entities) send me. The first line in my article says, article source. As far as fake news, I am not generating any of that knowingly. If someone generates that in their press release, I don’t know about it.
Whatever you give me, I will run it the way that you write it. I had a meeting early on with our new (school) superintendent. I published a couple complaining articles from the citizens. I said, “if you write me something I will not edit it, I will run it as you write it.”
People mostly are sending me good stuff they are not sending me complaints.

Q. Sounds like you were civically minded and involved long before you were Patch Mayor, so what drives you?
I went to one of the council meetings a couple years ago and one of the spokespersons for the commuter rail line spoke up and the Mayor said “doe anyone have any questions for this gentleman?
As a citizen, I can ask a question that for a mayor may not politically be an ok question to ask. I can ask that question.

Q. You mentioned that you tore down and rebuilt an entire house. That’s a unique experience. What did you get from that experience and what could you tell other people?
My wife and I did our work preliminarily. We had to leave one wall so that they would consider it a rebuild. We decided up front that she and I would not argue in front of the contractors. We would go back to Daily City and decide what the answer to the question was and present a united front. We had a real good, real good contractor. The city thought they did real good work.

Do you wish YOU had a place to sing the praises of people and events that make your town special? Interested in becoming a Patch Mayor? If you'd like to share on your community Patch, it's easy. Find out more here and let's make you a mayor!