Hi Barry,

I chose your letter to respond to because you took the time to be very specific and I appreciate the fact that you weren't inflammatory. Here are the answers to your questions and comments.

I'm sure you agree that the charity fundraising success stories are legitimate stories in our town as that's how many efforts are funded that preserve our way of life, without a city government.

We didn't miss the water pipeline shutdown or aquaduct issue. There was coverage on the front page Aug. 29, 2019, and again in a more in depth story from Joe Naiman, see the same issue, page C-4, “CWA ratifies emergency declaration for Moosa Canyon pipeline repair.” Then FPUD ran a large ad with the information announcing it as well.

We did a story on the decision against the July 4th celebration when it happened last year. We didn't think it needed to be covered again this year, although we could have.

I'm not sure about which top officials have been forced out of their jobs except one which we suspected but neither the board nor the person could comment according to their agreement, and we did a story on their replacement. Let us know who you are talking about and we will follow up on it.

As of last week, we now have three professional journalists covering our local boards and the health district. So we are doing even more. If you have concerns that you think we are missing, please just email us or call our office and we will be happy to check into it. We went through a turnover with one local journalist, but we have hired a new full time person, Will Fritz, who is great at investigative journalism in addition to Jeff Pack.

As the Hispanic community is out in the community they are covered as well. We have had a Spanish edition in the works the last few months and hope to launch that next month.

The state vaccine controversy and the charter school controversies are relevant for those of us who have school-aged children or grandchildren locally. As a parent and grandparent that was greatly served by local charter schools that were closed down, it's an important issue.

Not all students are round pegs that fit in round holes and the ability for parents to choose an educational path and institution that is best for their child is important. Unfortunately not all political decisions are made in the best interest of the students.

Vaccine controversy - I will address this one next week. It's too complicated, but for now, it is important that the conversations continue as lawsuits are going through the courts and lawmakers who are being paid millions continue to create laws that affect our children's health.

Thanks for the ideas to lose the national stories and end our use of Epoch Times. We have to keep pursuing different ideas and products to build our business, appeal to a broader audience and build engagement. In these modern times, we are finding that with a broader base of news topics we have more readers and that's what we need to continue to innovate and build.

Jeff Pack will continue to cover meetings, as will Joe Naiman and now Will Fritz. The addition of national news is not at all affecting our local news.

Entertainment: We are planning on expanding the entertainment section and Elizabeth does an amazing job with upcoming shows as she did last week with the Addams Family musical at Welk Theater which is there until Nov. 2. We already regularly cover Pala and Pechanga to a lesser degree.

I love your idea of putting all the town meetings coming up with dates, times, and places, so citizens can find all the information in one convenient place. We will work on that right away. You probably don't realize it, but in addition to choosing national stories to run and put online, Jeff usually writes a couple stories a day and he just can't do more than that!

Thanks again for the conversation. I appreciate you.

Julie Reeder