Marc Brancaccio leaves New Times Los Angeles to become publisher of Pasadena Weekly, replacing Charles Gerencser, who has moved to San Diego to start up San Diego CityBeat. At Ventura County Reporter, Sharon McKenna, also an alt-weekly veteran, becomes editor, replacing David Rolland, who is editor at CityBeat.
Whole Foods' Madison, Wis., store is the first to vote to unionize. What does this bode for the 133 other stores in the enormously profitable healthy foods chain, asks John Brewer of the San Antonio Current. CEO John Mackey, a native of Austin, Texas, once compared unionization to having herpes, so one suspects a hard fought anti-union war.
A New Orleans police captain tells Gambit Weekly's Katy Reckdahl that tent shelters would be a temporary solution to the problems of New Orleans' homeless. The city's homeless need something, say advocates, but not this, and street people are wary of the latest clean-up in the French Quarter. "Lately, seems like police have increased hatefulness toward us," a homeless man tells Reckdahl. "Sometimes I wonder if they're being told, 'It's us against the homeless.'"
The Stranger this week publishes its First Annual "Best of [our advertisers in] Seattle 2002" issue, taking a few pot shots at Seattle Weekly's recent "Best of Seattle" issue in the process. "We know when we're licked," the newspaper says in its introduction to the feature. "Dump the irony, screw the humor, and cut out the fucking middleman. Kissing the asses of advertisers is a game that two can play."
Ownership of Illinois Times reverted today from bankrupt Yesse Communications to former owner, Fletcher "Bud" Farrar. Immediate changes include dropping sex ads, increasing circulation and moving distribution back inside grocery stores. Farrar says in a news release he intends to make 27-year-old Illinois Times more "family friendly" and transform it into a community newspaper "in the best tradition of small-town weeklies."
