By Merv Moore
I grew up in Seagoville during the 1970s and 1980s. It was a place where people knew their neighbors, paid attention to what was happening down the street, and cared about the direction of our town.
In 1991, I founded The Seagoville Gazette, which quickly became the leading weekly newspaper in total local sales. But running a small-town paper back then meant 16-hour days, every single day.
Eventually, the grind caught up with me, and in 1993, I packed my bags for Switzerland to coach baseball. That single decision launched a decades-long journey coaching the game across Brunei, Bhutan, Nepal, and the Philippines, while keeping my hand in freelance sports writing.
Yet no matter how many miles I put between myself and North Texas, Seagoville never really left my system.
I distinctly remember standing in the Seagoville Post Office back in 1992, talking with former Mayor Calvin Travers. He pointed out something that stuck with me forever: Texas politicians in Washington never bothered visiting Seagoville because our local voter turnout was so abysmal.
More than three decades later, look around. Nothing has changed.
A healthy community requires an informed electorate, and an informed electorate requires a watchdog. I’ve taken my fair share of behind-the-back comments from several current Seagoville City Council members, mostly because I dare to point out the glaring lack of actual debate at council meetings.
I attended my very first Seagoville City Council meeting forty years ago. I remember a time when city council members showed up with their own distinct opinions. I remember when our leaders engaged in real, spirited debates instead of rolling through unanimous, rubber-stamped decisions week after week. I remember when Harold Magill served as Mayor in 2014 and asked the kind of tough questions that made plenty of folks inside City Hall deeply uncomfortable.
I know exactly how Harold felt. Since 1991, asking those exact kinds of tough questions has been my primary way of pissing off City Hall.
Back in the early ’90s, I easily could have become the Mayor of Seagoville. With the reach of The Seagoville Gazette, pulling together the 400 votes needed to oust then-Mayor Neal Wooley would have been a light lift. But politicians, by their very nature, are often worse than used car salesmen.
I’ve never held an ounce of ambition to hold elected office. What I do believe—unwaveringly—is that the media carries an absolute responsibility to hold every single politician accountable for the decisions they make with your tax dollars.
That is precisely why Shop in Seagoville was born.
Our area desperately needs a dedicated community news website—not just to keep residents informed on local government, schools, and civic developments, but to give our local small businesses a direct line to connect with the families who live here. A town without its own media platform is a town left in the dark, reliant on rumors and social media echo chambers.
My mission with Shop in Seagoville is simple: build this digital portal into a thriving community hub reaching 15,000 monthly unique visitors. And once that foundation is solid, my plan is to step back in February 2027, pass the torch to a new owner, and finally retire to Bohol Island in Southeast Asia.
When that handoff happens, representation matters. Today, more than half of Seagoville’s population is Hispanic. It is only fitting that the next owner and steward of Shop in Seagoville be a Hispanic entrepreneur who reflects the modern face of our community and understands where it’s headed next.
Seagoville and Crandall are growing, but growth without local news leads to apathy. It’s time we bring real transparency, active debate, and genuine community connection back to our hometown.
Merv Moore is the founder and editor of Shop in Seagoville and former publisher of The Seagoville Gazette.
