As Owner & Publisher of CV Weekly, I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year! I would also like to thank our readers for picking us up every week and reading us online. When I started this paper 9 months ago I wanted the Coachella Valley to have a publication that has something for everyone and that is what we have tried to achieve each week. Going into 2013, we have many new additions in store for you. In January we will be increasing from 28 to 32 pages. This will allow us to grow different sections of the paper including our restaurant reviews, which will feature two articles per week instead of one; Pampered Palate and Good Grub. We will also be expanding our Health, Fitness & Beauty and Mind, Body & Spirit sections to include more in depth articles about cutting edge and current medical procedures. We will also have an “Ask the Doctor” column. Also growing is our Sports Section that recently added a second column by Mike Livingston in addition to his golf column. We will also be providing coverage of the local So Cal Coyotes Football team, Power Baseball, Polo and other local Sporting events. All of our regular columns will return (some have been on vacation throughout the holidays) and we will be introducing a new Calendar of Events and giving a stronger focus on our Art column. The Classified ad section will also be revamped with the hiring of Amy Putnam. We will be doing more business and personal profiles to inform our readers about new local businesses as well as high profile people in our community. One of the things I am most excited about is a new feature we will be launching next week which is an in depth profile of every city in the Coachella Valley beginning with Cathedral City. This will allow our readers to know what is going on in their community. These profiles will be written by Heidi Simmons, our Book Review columnist, who will also be taking on more controversial news worthy stories. I am very excited to have Heidi in this expanded role along with the return of Features Writer Marissa Willman. Also joining Lisa Morgan on the Features Writing team is Judith Sulkin, who comes to us from the Desert Sun.
CV Weekly has an awesome team of columnist who I would like to thank for all of their hard work and dedication. This truly has been a team effort over the last 9 months and I am honored to have each and every one of you. I would also like to thank Oscar Arbulu, our amazing Art Director, who week after week comes up with amazing covers. A big thank you goes to Ray Bill, Sales Manager, for his loyalty and professionalism. Hugs and thank you to Lisa Morgan, who not only is our feature writer but also is out at every event doing PR and Publicity for us. Thank you Joe Sampson for keeping our website going and getting everything posted early every week. Look for some cool changes and updates coming to the website. And, of course, thank you to our great distribution team; Ivan Urias, Billy Westley and Jim Fox. We will also be welcoming Rudy Mendez to the distribution team in January as we increase our delivery locations and install more paper boxes for our readers’ convenience. A huge thank you goes to Philip Lacombe, our Nightlife Editor, FB promotions manager and Classified Sales Manager for being my partner and my voice of reason when I wonder what was I thinking???
I would like to express my appreciation to all of our advertisers who have been with us from the beginning as well as the many new ones who have just come on board. You can have a great product but it takes serious revenue to keep this train a rollin’. And thank you to Russell Sacks of Valley Printers for all of your support and for providing us with a quality print product every week.
Thank you all for making my CV Weekly dream a reality. Cheers!
