By Pat Keeble
Editor, contracostainsider.com

I wonder if Dean Lesher, for whom I worked for 27 years, would understand what’s going on at the Contra Costa Times and its sister papers, which he started and owned for so long. He would do lay-offs every two or three years or so.

We’d say, “he must need money” and in due time he’d announce he was building a new printing plant in North Concord or buying into the Walnut Creek Regional Arts Center. And in a year or so we’d be back up to strength.

But he never gutted the paper. It was a matter of saving a little money, and at the same time maybe let the editors delete a few of the lesser staff. We didn’t have a union so we had no protection whatsoever from economic cutbacks. But it always came back.

What’s going on now, combined with what else is going on in the newspaper business, is a comparative slaughterhouse. With the News Media merger, gobbling up Bay Area papers  and adding to numerous mergers around the country in recent years, the news window is narrowing. Fewer newspapers, featuring “combined” coverage by fewer reporters, are not replacing today’s news with better news. It’s eliminating news, particularly local news, that is not being replaced by other media.

The new organization has invited the employees of all the papers to apply for a buy-out or risk being fired. In such cases, the experienced (and higher paid) journalists are the first to go. Coverage gets “combined” as newspapers merge. Fewer voices are presented.

One wonders where the future’s trained, professional journalists will come from and how they will be paid. Recently a newspaper editor reported on his discussion with a college journalism class. He and they thought the web was the future of news. But the students also thought, vehemently, that the web should be free to readers. Advertising pays the costs of putting out a print paper, but only an average of 3-5 percent of newspaper websites. Yet these students expected to make a living working for webpapers.

Newspapers are losing readers and money hand-over-fist.  The web is where it’s at, they say. Then they wonder why newspapers’ websites don’t take off.

Because it’s not the same thing. The websites haven’t been able to make the ad money that the newspapers can make, no matter how many flashing pop-up ads they put on.

Newspapers will survive in some form or another, for awhile, anyway. New readers will be found as they rediscover this thing that doesn’t need batteries and the hard drive never gets knocked out. One can spread out a page and see lots of things, including an ad that might catch the eye even though it doesn’t jump around all over the page.

News is essential to a living, breathing, supportive democracy. As much as people complain about the news media, we cannot do without it.  When have you read about a merger where it says “we’re going to do a better job of protecting our freedoms” as opposed to “we have to cut costs”?

Reporters are the messengers of democracy, and we’re killing them off, merger by merger.

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Pat Keeble is former Political Editor of Lesher Newspapers, Inc., now known as Contra Costa Newspapers, and is editor and publisher of her own online news site Contra Costa Insider.

The presidential primary campaigns are finally in California (and a few other states at the same time) but most of us won’t get to see the candidates up close and personal as did the Iowans and New Hampshirites.

A friend in Iowa told me she got to see every candidate there and talk to several of them. She ended up being assigned precinct captain for Chris Dodd at her caucus. There was only one other Dodd supporter at the event, foretelling perhaps Dodd’s quick exit from the hustings the next day.

One issue has been largely absent from the campaigns until now and that’s the war in Iraq. When you’re talking to a potential voter practically (or actually) face to face, they seem to be more interested in Social Security, health care and lost jobs than in international affairs.

That’s beginning to change and will, I feel, become the predominant issue as soon as the nominees become evident. It will be made so by the Republicans. Their theme will be that they are best suited to fight terrorism — especially if the Dems nominate a woman.

Expect blood to flow.

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As we mentioned earlier, the poor incumbents in legislative seats won’t know until Feb. 6, and maybe not for weeks after that, what seats to run for in the June 3 primary election. Only one of the six representing portions of Contra Costa — Assemblyman Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, — is not being termed out this year, but he, along with the rest, is caught in the squeeze created by Prop. 93 on the February ballot.

Prop. 93 would extend term limits by two years and give terming-out incumbents the right to run for re-election, and almost certain victory, in their present seats. There’s little doubt that they would all do just that.

But if it doesn’t pass, DeSaulnier will pass up certain re-election to the final two years he is currently allotted in the Assembly and go for the State Senate seat held by terming-out Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, who would turn around and run for DeSaulnier’s Assembly seat since he qualifies for two more years there.

In other districts, which share territory with other counties, the termed out Assembly members are weighing whether to try to step up the Senate.

Assemblyman Guy Houston, R-San Ramon, has a slightly different problem. He’s beng termed out of his Assembly seat. Alameda County portions of the nearest Senate District include most of the voters, giving anyone from the eastern portions little chance of winning. He eyed the state Board of Equalization seat being vacated by term limits but the Republican Party has already selected former legislator Dean Andal of Stockton as its candidate.

That means he’ll be out of politics or he can step down, and he’s chosen to do the latter, running against fellow Republican Mary Nejedly Piepho for the non-partisan 3rd Supervisorial District seat. If Prop. 93 passes, he would undoubtedly seek re-election to the Assembly instead.

Meanwhile, assuming his 15th District Assembly seat will be vacant, 11 candidates have taken one or more official steps towards the June ballot, including three Republicans nine Democrats and one Libertarian.

The standout is former San Ramon Mayor H. Abram Wilson, a banker highly regarded in the community. It’s probable that a number of candidates will drop out before the filing deadline. If Prop. 93 passes, giving Houston another chance, most of them would drop out.

Prop. 93, by the way, is trailing badly in the polls.

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For a full list of primary election filings for local seats see the rest of Pat Keeble’s most recent article at the Contra Costa Insider

By Pat Keeble, editor, Contra Costa Insider

So the primaries are finally underway nationwide and we are promised that in the next month or so the rain with which we are being deluged will be succeeded by a deluge of TV ads from people running for president.

You wouldn’t know it unless you’re thinking of running for something else, but in the middle of all that, the countdown has begun for the state’s June 3 primary.

June? What about the presidential primary Feb. 5?

Well, yes, that, too. But the first filing period for candidates in the June primary began Dec. 28. Not too many people noticed this in the middle of the week between Christmas and New Year’s.

The legislators and governor in their wisdom separated the primaries. That means we have three statewide elections in 2008 instead of two.

The only candidates on the Feb. 5 election will be those running for their parties’ presidential nominations. Since it’s a statewide election, propositions could be included and there a number of them.

In June, we will vote in the primaries for candidates for Congress, the state Senate and Assembly. There will also be a final vote (barring run-offs) for three of the five county supervisorial seats and nine Superior Court judgeships.

Those offices require the expenditure of a filing fee. The optional filing period which has begun allows candidates who can’t pay or don’t want to pay the filing fee to substitute petitions in lieu of all or part of the fee with signatures of registered voters supporting them. The number needed varies by office.

Originally designed to help lower income candidates, the procedure has become a practice of proving popularity, as in, “Look, I didn’t have to pay the filing fee because so many people already support me.” Some candidates even have parties to gather supporters around them to sign the petitions.

The filing period has also developed into a statement by candidates that they are running for the office. Occasionally, it is the first public notice some candidates give that they are running While most voters ignore it, if they even know it exists, it is followed closely by candidates, their staffs and political junkies.

Office holders who are well-established or others who just don’t want to bother with the process simply pay the filing fee.

The regular filing of nomination papers for the June election begins Feb. 11 and ends March 7. It is extended five days to March 12 in cases where incumbents don’t file for re-election by March 7.

But that latter provisioin has a kink in it this year, related to the early presidential primary. One of the measures on the Feb. 5 ballot pertains to extending term limits for incumbent legislative office-holders.

Under the current law on term limits, State Sen. Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, will be termed out of the upper house this year. He has expressed the possibility he will go back for the final two years he can serve in the Assembly.

That seat is now held by Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord. He has said he will run for Torlakson’s Senate seat. The Senate seat is also expected to be sought by former Assemblyman Joe Canciamilla, the Pittsburg Democrat who was termed out of the lower house two years ago.

However, if the term limit initiative on the Feb. 5 ballot passes, Torlakson and DeSaulnier would be allowed to serve more time in their current seats, which would save them from tough campaigning this year, since they would be strong favorites as incumbents in their current seats.

Here’s the catch: The results of the Feb. 5 election will be certified March 4. Filing for those offices ends March 7, with the conditional extension to March 12. If it wins, they have only three days to complete the filing requirements to stay in their current seats, leaving other would-be candidates up in the air until nearly the last minute.

Polls show the measure will probably lose. Polls show voters seem to be happy with term limits as they are They might vote to change them if they didn’t have to wade through a lot of verbal crocodiles to understand what the new proposal is all about.

Details of the June primary requirements can be obtained from the brand new County Clerk’s building in Martinez or at (925) 335-7800 or www.cocovote.us. It overlooks the infamous beaver dam in the downtown area, so you can visit both sites in one trip.

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Pat Keeble is former Political Editor of Lesher Newspapers, Inc., now known as Contra Costa Newspapers, and is editor and publisher of her own online news site Contra Costa Insider.