My View
By Don Sorchych | April 28, 2010
Contributions | Carefree and Kiwanis | Senator Barto?
Many thanks to the wonderful contributors to Sonoran News! Reading the comments accompanying the donations is most gratifying. Some comments are worth repeating, like these:
Really miss the weekly print edition.
We really enjoy reading Sonoran News. It is only available to us at the Desert Hills Mail Boxes rack in the store. Your classified rates are too expensive. Linda Bentley’s articles are tops. We also like Shari Jo’s stories. We do not like reading the paper online so we miss it a lot. Keep on going!
Don and Linda keep up the good work. We need voices like yours in this time of peril!
Great paper, change nothing.
The best damn editorial/opinion and letters to the editor pages I have ever read! Right on target. Keep firing hot loads!
I don’t always like you, but I love what you do!
Earlier comments are posted online (Click on the bottom banner on Front Page News).
Everyone knows a free newspaper exists from revenue provided by advertisers. Because of advertiser shortfalls mainly due to the economy we decided to print every other week while fielding our award winning web page every week.
We find many, maybe most, prefer the printed page as I do so we are anxious to return to weekly publication as soon as possible. The economy seems to be improving although most financial indicators tell us otherwise. Then, of course, summer is coming, snowbirds go home and business usually slackens until September or so.
Your contributions certainly help and we appreciate that. It would be helpful if consumers like you reminded the stores you visit that advertising with Sonoran News is a sure phone ring or visit.
We have stated for many years we are the most widely read newspaper in north Maricopa County. With 46,500 papers delivered every other week and a website growing every week we are way ahead of the competition. We are delivering approximately three times what the Scottsdale Republic does. The next nearest claims 20,000 each month versus our 93,000 so we deliver more than 4.5 times what that one does. The third is barely registering on our radar.
So you may ask why the town of Carefree and Carefree Kiwanis advertise in the Scottsdale Republic and one or more of the others.
Politics!
Lets start with the fact Carefree’s administration is tightly wrapped with Kiwanis. Susan Vanik is President of Kiwanis and a Carefree councilwoman. Carefree’s administration is led by Good Old Boys (GOBs) most of whom are Kiwanians.
However, Carefree’s use of taxpayers’ funds to support Kiwanis is over the top especially since Kiwanis is running full page plus half-page ads in the Arizona Republic and elsewhere about their pancake breakfast and the $2.5 million given to them by someone.
OK then is Carefree getting a “deal” from the Scottsdale Republic? The answer to that is NO, not even close!
Carefree ran a two column inch by four and one half inches for three days. They paid $525 plus $108 for color for a total of $633. That amounts to $211 per day.
Sonoran News would have bid, if asked, $270 for the ad plus $25 for color for a total of $295.
The slight difference in dollars can be explained by our overwhelming superiority in circulation and an equally huge advantage in readership.
Sonoran News delivers 2,500 papers to the Carefree Post Office while the Scottsdale Republic delivers 700. An additional 970 newspapers are distributed to Carefree businesses. Those racks are filled twice. We don’t have accurate numbers for Scottsdale Republic sales from racks or single copy sales but we were told by an Arizona Republic employee that they deliver 14,000 newspapers in our six zip codes while we deliver 46,500 or 3.32 times as many.
It is common knowledge the more the distribution the more people read and respond.
Responsible purchasers of ad space know all of this but in this case the town clerk is either making a political decision or is being told where to advertise for political reasons.
The fact is Sonoran News ad rates are a bargain. The more astute businesses know this and enjoy the resulting increase in their business.
And by whom in so-called charitable Kiwanis are advertising decisions made? Susan Vanik told me she is not only the president of Kiwanis she also heads the marketing committee. She was asked who was on that committee and she refused to answer but added four GOB names and said they were NOT on the committee. Well there are more than four GOBs in Kiwanis.
So lets dream a little that the next Carefree election will break the strangle hold that GOBs and Kiwanis have on the town.
HB 2154
We have reported that there is a huge risk for any Arizonian living on a private road and relying on their easement agreement. I should know; I have defended myself in court when a neighbor demanded payment for road building and maintenance I had no interest in. I already performed whatever maintenance the road needed using my own resources.
So my neighbor worked through a state representative to author and support what he wants, which is dictatorial control over the road leading to his house with me paying half the cost.
Fortunately Rep. Nancy Barto R-Dist. 7, the willing accomplice, is up for election for the state Senate. So voters will have a chance to show her how much they appreciate a lawmaker who sneaks a volatile bill into the system, claiming to copy a California bill. Linda Bentley’s article last week demolished Barto’s story as she shows how Barto changed the language in the California statute. But who wants a California law for this state anyway?
This type of bill required state-wide examination and response, not stealth. If Barto were doing her homework she would have read the court transcript to see what Judge Ed Ballinger had to say in ruling against Gerald Freeman on all counts.
It really doesn’t matter who runs against Barto, a lame kangaroo would be better. Sonoran News will likely have a local forum so voters can get a good look at Barto. As she says, “Stay tuned.”
