Beachcombing

One item featured in the Beachcomber’s online version is a poll at the bottom of the front page, asking a variety to questions that provide feedback on what our readers think. Since we do not always mention these polls in the print edition, responses are sometimes in the dozens of votes. Questions about airport noise (95 votes) and recalling Jeannine Pearce (295 votes) received strong levels of response.

Our new website, created about 18 months ago, has the ability to detect people trying to skew results by voting more than once and block additional voting from the same universal resource locator (URL). Thus we are reasonably assured that the feedback is fairly accurate.

Here are some of the polls published over the past year:

Do you favor rent control in Long Beach? Yes 19% (7 votes), No 70% (26 votes), Undecided 11% (4 votes)

Should JetBlue be banned from Long Beach Airport for continuously violating our noise? Yes 14% (13 votes), No 81% (77 votes), Undecided 5% (5 votes)

Do you agree or disagree with MemorialCare’s plan to close Community Hospital? Agree 20% (15 votes), Disagree 74% (55 votes), Undecided 5% (4 votes)

Do you agree or disagree with the Styrofoam ban? Agree 58% (15 votes), Disagree 42% (11 votes)

Do you agree or disagree with the renaming of Columbus Day? Agree 8% (2 votes), Disagree 92% (22 votes)

Do you agree or disagree with the passage of the “sanctuary state” senate bill 54? Agree 16% (8 votes), Disagree 84% (42 votes), No opinion 0% (0 votes)

Should Jeannine Pearce be recalled? Yes 42% (124 votes), No 56% (166 votes), Not sure 2% (5 votes)

As you can see, these polls are very helpful in feeling the pulse of our readers.

Our current poll asks the question: “Who do your favor in the 5th District race between Stacy Mungo and Rich Dines on June 5? Go to www.beachcomber.news and make your selection at the bottom of the page. In a little more than five weeks from now we’ll see how accurately our online poll measures up against the official tabulation.

 

Someone recently asked me if I’d consider selling the Beachcomber. That’s the kind of question that will stop you in your tracks and ponder.

A deceased former mentor, Jack Cooke, who was a public relations honcho for McDonnell Douglas Corp., once told me that I should build up my public relations business and then sell it. The only other ex-publisher that I know sold the Grunion Gazette for something under $10 million. He was a mentor as well, once suggesting that advertising salespersons should be paid well.

Assuming the sale would be at an attractive price and the buyer would be a good fit, the next question is: What you do with your life after that?

After ten years of working in corporate America I started my own agency 40 years ago and have enjoyed every minute of it, working with the high and mighty as well as traveling the globe and making a good income in the process. We worked with some of the largest corporations and government agencies in America and many of the oldest and most successful firms locally.

During the past 18 years our newspaper has made a difference in setting some wayward people on a more appropriate course. Our readers like having ink on their hands, reading the local stuff and learning who the good (and bad) players are in the neighborhood. It can be somewhat of a head trip to see your name in the same emails sent to local elected leaders until you read the contents, then make you appreciate that you don’t have their job.

The bottom line is that I’d never retire. I’ve already been a university lecturer for nine years and mentored more than 150 interns along the way. If the paper was sold I’d probably dabble in hand-picked public relations jobs, play handyman, travel a little and spend more time with family – especially the grandkids.

But thanks for asking. We should always take a step backward, look at where we’ve been and look to the future.

Or as Commercial Realtor Greg Gill said last Thursday upon accepting the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award: “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”

  publisher@beachcomber.news

 

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