This is a goal we've had in mind for a while. We started out at 8 pages in January 2004, some of you loyal, early readers may recall, and gradually transformed into a predominantly 12-page product later that year.
Not that we want to become huge wads of weekly newsprint, mind you, like some local publications that need forklifts to be extracted from their news racks. Such vastness would seem unrepresentative of our relatively small circulation area or our intent to be a simple community newspaper for the Westside. But 16 pages makes sense from different standpoints. It's not too big, it's appealing in certain financial ways, and it might even prove unavoidable in the weeks ahead if more and more of you fine folks out there continue to look to the Pioneer for your advertising needs. We are in this to make a living, in case anyone wondered. (I've wondered!)
As for the news this week, I had hoped to get comments about the new Bancroft Park policy from JEI, which has sponsored the crafter Saturdays at Bancroft for the past few years. From past conversations with those people, I would be surprised if they let this decision (limiting them to one Saturday a month) go uncontested. So I'll continue trying to reach them and maybe have a follow-up on the policy for our Oct. 6 issue. One merchant I talked to, off the record, was wondering if having the crafters doesn't actually help attract people to Old Town. Maybe or maybe not, but at least an event like Scarecrow Days, which serves the same purpose, is under their control, not someone else's.
- K.J.