By Neena Strichart
A new election season is heating up with no cooling trend in sight. Not only do we have two seats up for grabs for Signal Hill’s City Council, we are also facing a race for our State Senate’s 28th district seat— the one left vacant when 53-year-old Senator Jenny Oropeza passed away in October of last year.
The Senatorial special election will be Feb. 15, just a little over a month away, while the Signal Hill election takes place March 1. Although local elections give us lots of fodder for news here at the Signal Tribune, the editorial decisions are quite stressful on the staff. We do our very best to remain as fair and unbiased as possible, yet sometimes, as my mother would say, “things happen.”
Last week we had a letter to the editor submitted by a man who identified himself by name and city of residence. I know the man is not only a Signal Hill resident but is also a new Civil Service commissioner for the City. When running his letter, I did not find it necessary to identify the man as a commissioner, but I have since been taken to task for that decision. So, after discussions with my managing editor, Cory Bilicko, and the legal staff at the California Newspaper Publishers Association, I have decided that from this day forward, in the interest of full disclosure, we will identify letter writers by their titles when (and only when) we deem it relevant and/or to provide context to the letter. Insisting that individuals identify themselves would be a violation of their 1st Amendment rights. With that said, Bill Yochum, the letter writer of “Unsolicited advice” in last week’s issue, is indeed a Signal Hill Civil Service commissioner. Enough said about that!
Now, I also want to make clear a standing policy of ours to all of our readers. Here is our standard reply to candidates who submit letters to the editor:
We do not run letters to the editor submitted by individuals who have declared their candidacies for public office in upcoming races. This policy was put in place because, as you can understand, to be fair if we run one we would have to run all letters submitted by all candidates. The volume would no doubt eliminate space for letters submitted by other readers. Instead, we agree to interview candidates and print stories about political races in an objective manner and offer very reasonable advertising rates for those candidates who wish to purchase ads.
Thank you for understanding our position.
Nevertheless, I am looking forward to the senatorial and city council candidate forums organized by the League of Women Voters. I’ll give you the details as soon as they are all confirmed.
