Within a month, many in Lawrence County will see changes in their local government.

In Ironton, the city has a new mayor, while the council saw a major generational shift in electing three new members.

In Chesapeake, Kim Oldaker will be the village’s first female mayor, and in Coal Grove, Gary Sherman will take over the mayor job.

With new leadership coming in, let us hope we see changes in participation as well.

For far too long, council meetings have had sparse attendance and we encourage all of these new leaders to work on ways to motivate citizenship.

For instance, Oldaker ran on a pledge to try to bring the council out of village hall and into the public for meetings.

This would be an excellent start and we hope other municipalities follow suit.

Government and democracy function best when they are participatory.

And that means you. If you haven’t attended a meeting of your local government, make an effort to do so.

Our region has many issues in front of it that we can all tackle together.

We urge all to get involved in the coming year and work toward a renewed sense of citizenship.