‘Voice of Foothills’ Is Silenced

For 92 years, the weekly Sierra Madre News chronicled the history of its namesake town, story by story, from 911 calls about barking dogs to the thrills and spills of the Great Crate Race.

But there is one story this self-proclaimed “Voice of the Foothills” never told: the one about its own demise.

The 50-cent newspaper, known to locals affectionately as “The Squeak,” ceased publishing a few weeks ago without word or warning.

Its green, old-fashioned news racks are empty. Its offices bolted. Its phones go unanswered.

The advertisers say they’ve been taken. And the archives that amount to the city history are gone.

Folks in this foothills retreat of nearly 11,000 people 15 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles were left in the dark over the fate of a local institution. Now, it seems the worst has happened.

Publisher Michael De Wees said the 3,000-circulation News has printed its final edition after more than two years under bankruptcy protection.

De Wees said his decision was not made because of financial woes or the appearance of two competing weeklies in the town with nary a stoplight or a chain supermarket. Rather, he said, the long hours took their toll.

“I turned 30 this month,” De Wees said. “I think I am ready to move into a new chapter in my life.”

But some saw De Wees’ decision as the rude ending to a fairy tale, another reflection of the changing times in a rustic town where raspberry lattes are fast replacing the old cup of joe.

“How could he do this to the town?” said an emotional Jannene Reed, who owned the paper for 14 years before selling it to De Wees. “It’s like tearing the heart out of the community.”

Lamented Phyllis Chapman, town historian and longtime News contributor: “I’m in a state of mourning. What are we going to lose next?”

One recent morning at a breakfast joint on Sierra Madre’s main strip--Baldwin Avenue--a group of old-timers grumbled about how their favorite paper was run into the ground.

“De Wees bought the place on a shoestring and it snapped,” said George Maurer, 76, a former mayor who spent 30 years as a News printer before leaving the paper in 1992.

Ironically, it was Maurer’s age-discrimination suit against the paper in 1993 that started to fray that shoestring. Former owner Reed incurred $40,000 in legal costs before settling out of court, and the community rallied to keep its venerable weekly going. Residents had fund-raisers and banded together to pressure Maurer to go easy on the News, nicknamed the “squeaky little paper” by old-timers.

Enter the flamboyant De Wees, who purchased the News in 1994 for $85,000 from Reed, borrowing much of the money from her.

The nattily attired De Wees already owned an El Monte weekly, which he bought at age 21, right out of Cal State Los Angeles.

But two years ago, his bubble burst. De Wees filed for bankruptcy, citing $96,000 in debts, including $52,000 owed to Reed.

“He had problems making payments. We’ve been to court so many times,” said Reed, who declined to say how much is still outstanding. “I feel guilty for selling it to him.”

De Wees is scheduled to appear in bankruptcy court in September, and can expect to face some additional creditors with the closing of the paper.

“We paid for ads in newspapers that didn’t appear,” real estate broker Judy Webb-Martin said.

Until the News ceased publishing, an all-out newspaper war was raging in Sierra Madre with the long-established weekly facing the two upstart papers.

Sierra Madre Mountain Views and the Sierra Madre Weekly, free tabloid weeklies, opened two years ago amid dissatisfaction with De Wees’ decision to shake up the staid News. He wrote less-than-flattering stories about City Hall and published critical letters to the editor about local businesses.

Advertisers began defecting from the News after it was late to publish a few times earlier in the year, said Beth Buck, publisher of the rival Mountain Views.

“I made several offers to buy the paper. The last was three months ago. I knew he was in financial trouble, and it was the last chance to save the paper,” Buck said. “It didn’t make a cent and he wanted $90,000.”

While some say the existing papers will still provide a place for local stories, like the Fourth of July parade, and opportunities for parents to see their kids’ names in print, others say the death of the Sierra Madre News leaves a void.

“These weeklies are Sierra Madre papers by name,” said community activist Linda Thornton, “but they will never replace the News in our hearts.”