A hearty welcome to Ed Tonkin, the latest member of the GlobalErie Network.

Ed is the author of our newest blog “The Gulf Of …” — a title that is play on his last name. (If you don’t get the reference, please Google “Gulf of Tonkin”.)

He will write from the perspective of a libertarian, which should add some interesting and thought-provoking perspectives to the wide-ranging discussion we are having here on GlobalErie.

Like the others who write here, Ed is writing because he believes in Erie and because he wants to see a better future for his community.

“My family has come to love Erie. However, we couldn’t understand the ‘locals’ being so down on the area,” he writes in his first post. “We’ve come to see Erie as a diamond in the rough. It needs to be polished and cleaned, but first we need to decide to bend over and pick it up.”

I invite you to check it out and join his discussion.

And if you haven’t yet checked out the writings of some of our other new bloggers, I’d like to encourage you to do so.

Erie native Pat Sweny writes Black Holes and Revelations about his experiences as a college student who wants to return to his hometown after graduation.

Doug Berlin offers an off-the-wall take on sports on Is It Just Me …?

And more is on the way. We’re in the process of adding other new voices to the network, bringing some new features into the mix, and pushing our conversation into some bold new areas.

If you have some suggestions, please feel free to pass them along. I’d love to hear form you.