Monthly Newspaper Being Promised for La Mesa Starting in June

La Mesa’s first print newspaper since the 1985 demise of the weekly La Mesa Scout will debut in June—as a monthly publication with a promised 20,000 circulation.

Former San Diego Councilman Jim Madaffer is publisher of the La Mesa Courier, which was disclosed Thursday morning at a breakfast event of the La Mesa Chamber of Commerce.

The La Mesa Courier—taking the same name as another paper of three decades ago—joins the stable of other Madaffer print products, including the Mission Times Courier, founded in 1995 by Madaffer’s wife, Sally Ortega Madaffer, and Mission Valley News.

Editor of the free paper will be Pam Crooks, who was described in a promotional flier (attached) as bringing “years of writing and editing experience to the job. She and her husband have lived in La Mesa for almost 30 years and raised three sons here.”

At the chamber event, Crooks said she recently lived several years in downtown San Diego but returned in 2007. She says she’ll work out of her home southeast of Mount Helix, outside La Mesa city limits.

The Courier flier, aimed at potential advertisers, said Crooks “believes in the importance of community newspapers and is looking forward to writing about and showcasing this place she loves.”

“The La Mesa Courier will reflect the quality of life that makes La Mesa so special, providing an important forum for local stories and ideas to germinate and grow,” Madaffer wrote. “We guarantee your customers will be reading and talking about this newspaper.”

According to a Wikipedia entry, the Mission Times Courier was published for one month under the name Navajo Times, “but this name was too similar to another area publication called Navajo News, which ceased publishing in October 1995. The newspaper changed its name to Mission Times Courier with the June 1995 issue and has been publishing under that name ever since.”

In 2006, two years before leaving the San Diego City Council due to term limits, Madaffer was profiled by Evan McLaughlin in VoiceOfSanDiego.org in a 1,600-word article that noted:

It’s not uncommon for local politicians to be shown grinning on the front pages of a community newspaper. But it’s not everyday that the article is written by the politician’s mother—in a newspaper owned by the politician and published by his wife.

Such is the case at the Mission Times Courier, a monthly community newspaper delivered free to lawns and driveways throughout the councilman’s eastern San Diego district.

For nearly a decade, Madaffer and his wife have owned the Mission Times Courier, which offers blurbs about the happenings of nearby schools, planning groups, youth sports leagues and new construction projects. Rarely does a story about City Hall pass without at least a passing reference to Madaffer’s efforts, if not a friendly pat on the back.

According to a March 2008 blog entry associated with Point Loma Nazarene University:

Madaffer has been a small business owner since 1981, but he and his wife have had their share of business ventures. In 1988, they filed for a Chapter 7 bankruptcy when their pool and spa accessories business JVM failed. They’ve also tried their hand at an Internet service provider and a direct mail marketing firm. When the Madaffers failed to pay their mortgage for a year, they filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy to stop an impending foreclosure.

Editor Crooks in January 2011 was introduced as editor of the sister Mission Valley News, where she was described as a longtime writer of San Diego guide books with weekly newspaper experience in North Carolina and western New York.

Married three decades to Ted Crooks, Pam has three grown children and is a graduate of St. Mary’s College of Raleigh, NC, said Mission Valley News.

One of her sons graduated from Grossmont High School in 2004, she said Thursday morning.

In February 2004, in a letter to The San Diego Union-Tribune, Crooks praised Parent Shadow Day at Grossmont High School:

“I came away with two conflicting impressions: my son is obtaining an excellent education while the campus itself is a disgrace. Grossmont High, once the pinnacle of pride in our Grossmont/Mt. Helix/Fletcher Hills community, is so shabby now one wonders how the teachers can stand to teach there even if the students seem oblivious to the fact.”

She urged passage of Proposition H, the $274 million bond measure ultimately approved by voters that year.

Before its improvements at the oldest district high school, Crooks wrote: “As to those who suggest that Alpine residents should pay for their own high school, I say this: I would prefer that we level Grossmont High and erect instead a wood, stone and glass edifice that would take advantage of its magnificent geographical site on the Grossmont summit, which could be seen by millions of drivers everyday as the flagship of our high school district.”

La Mesa Courier will have an online presence as well, featuring stories from the print edition, Madaffer said Thursday.

The site’s domain name—lamesacourier.com—was created in March 2011 but contains a survey as of Thursday.

The survey, conducted through a third-party site called SurveyMonkey, lists nine options (including La Mesa Patch but not La Mesa Today), and asks: What newspapers do you read covering the La Mesa community?

It also asks: If La Mesa had its own community newspaper, what is the most important for local coverage?

Options listed with a 1-5 ranking were: crime blotter, school news, local columnists, churches, youth sports and service clubs.

According to its promotional flier, the La Mesa Courier will distribute 15,000 issues “door to door” and 5,000 issues “at over 140 locations.” Homes in the 91941 and 91942 ZIP codes, including the Mount Helix area, will get the publication.