Judy Mottl, Patch Staff

Email:

Judy.Mottl@patch.com

Hometown:  Bayport, NY 

Twitter: http://twitter.com/Sayville-BayportPtch

I am a south shore girl at heart, having grown up in Bayport. I re-located to Sayville for a few years and then returned.

I love Long Island's south shore as I'm a big ocean and bay fan and there isn't any other place I'd rather live.

I graduated college with the intention of working for a daily newspaper but got hooked on local community journalism and worked for several Suffolk County weekly newspapers, including The Suffolk County News, Long Island Advance, Suffolk Life and Record Newspapers.

During those years I won numerous local, state and  national journalism achievement awards  for feature writing and investigative journalism.

I then moved into business and technology (with the dawn of the Internet) editorial and content world and have spent the past 15 years as a senior editor/feature editor/reporter/blogger and writer, contributing to dozens of leading tech publications and media companies, including UBM Media, Cnet, InformationWeek, Investor's Business Daily, Tech Careers and Information Security Magazine to name jus a few.

I've lead the editorial effort on several Web site content start-up initiatives and have worked as a freelance writer for a wide variety of top U.S. companies, including IBM and HP.

While I love technology and covering business issues, my heart has always been with community journalism and the Patch organization is a dream come true for someone who loves people and writing.

Beliefs

At Patch, we promise always to report the facts as objectively as possible and otherwise adhere to the principles of good journalism. However, we also acknowledge that true impartiality is impossible because human beings have beliefs. So in the spirit of simple honesty, our policy is to encourage our editors to reveal their beliefs to the extent they feel comfortable. This disclosure is not a license for you to inject your beliefs into stories or to dictate coverage according to them. In fact, the intent is the opposite: we hope that the knowledge that your beliefs are on the record will cause you to be ever mindful to write, report and edit in a fair, balanced way. And if you ever see evidence that we failed in this mission, please let us know.

Politics

How would you describe your political beliefs? I not affiliated with any political group or organization and make determination on issues. I am registered Independent.

Religion

Do you consider yourself really religious? No.

Do you identify with a certain religion? I was raised Catholic but am not a member of any religion or parish.

Local Hot-Button Issues

What do you think are the most important issues facing the community?

Keeping Sayville-Bayport-West Sayville-Blue Point all beautiful, safe and vibrant communities and decision making that takes into account all the segments.