If your community's biggest problem is sprawl and over-development, it is useful to know what percentage of the local paper's revenue comes from real estate ads. Recently, information has become available about the location of every toxic dump and polluter anywhere in the country. If you are concerned about air and water pollution in your area, find out who is responsible for creating it. Many more bills pass in committees and sub-committees than ever become actual laws or make the news. The voting record of legislators is usually far worse than is generally understood.
Most citizens are completely clueless about what their legislators are doing.
Your local newspaper is not likely to tell you. Get a list of bad bills and special interest legislation from the League of Conservation Voters, the League of Women Voters, the Sierra Club, Audubon, the Wilderness Society and the other national groups with a presence in your state. Most likely they will know what will be coming up for a vote. County planning department records are open to the public and there is no reason for anyone to be surprised to find bulldozers going in and destroying a forest or filling a wetland. All development plans in the U.S. are filed and processed months, sometimes years, in advance and there are usually many ways citizens can modify or stop these schemes.