WE REMEMBER!

by Richard Koscher

We are offering to send an issue of 110° Magazine free to residents of East Contra Costa County currently serving in the American military in Iraq. Just send the soldier's name plus his/her FPO/AP to us and we will get a copy of the current issue off to him/her.

110 Degrees Media
101 Sand Creek Road, B, Ste. 219A
Brentwood, CA 94513

We were flattered a couple of days ago to receive an email from the education coordinator at the Contra Costa Water District, who wrote:

I was interested in your article "H2Woes." This article addresses in a concise and easy to understand manner many of the issues we try to cover in our school education programs. I would like to photocopy this article to add to the teacher information packets I send out.

We are particularly grateful that one of our loyal advertisers, Metro 1 Credit Union, who advertised on one of those pages, will now have their advertisement reproduced in educational institutions throughout Contra Costa County. Way to go!

Vasco Road Revisited
In this issue Joanne Flynn, one of the founders of CRAVE (Concerned Residents About Vasco Experiences) describes the good things that have already been happening, due in part to their efforts. For one thing, there have been no fatal accidents so far this year, thank God.

Joanne has some discouraging things to report, however — particularly with regard to the obstacles they are encountering in their efforts to implement what some CRAVE members consider to be the minimum safety improvement — barriers between the lanes to prevent the violent cross-over accidents.

I recently learned why Vasco Road is not a four-lane divided highway. When the road was rerouted to its current course, the Contra Costa Water District offered to pay for any kind of road the County wanted. The decision-making process reportedly fell into the control of a clique of people who opted for the current 2-lane road instead of a 4-lane highway as a way of attempting to limit growth and conserve the environment.

I find it even more infuriating, that right-of-way was purchased sufficient only for the current two lanes of traffic. The short-sighted decision makers not only failed to seek the highway that we really need, but ensured that we could never create it without eventually expending hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues to finally accomplish what CCWD would gladly have done as part of the original Vasco improvement project.

So now East County residents are being maimed and killed in payment for the ignorance of a group of people who didn't realize that our area would grow with or without a transportation infrastructure sufficient to support the growth that no group of bureaucrats could ever control by such arbitrary and indirect methods.

More Advertising — A Good Thing for Everybody
Those of you who have been enjoying our 110° Magazine should be happy to see that the number of pages of advertising has been going up.

All of us working for the magazine are, of course, delighted by the increased advertising. We believe that it reflects an increase of confidence by local people and businesses. We suspect that some of our new advertising clients have been waiting to see if our magazine would be able to remain in business. Well, here we are after nine months and we're healthier, stronger, and more determined than ever.

Increased advertising is good for our readers, as well. We're determined never to turn 110° Degrees into a mere advertising vehicle. As the number of pages of advertising increases, the pages of text will increase, as well, in order to maintain the ratio between content and advertising.

In other words, the more advertisers we have, the more articles we can have. No matter how large our magazine grows, when people read 110° Degrees they will never wonder where the content is; each issue will be heavy with interesting articles.

Good reading to you all!
Richard Koscher, Publisher