What Makes Bay Weekly Different?

In Chesapeake Country, newspapers can say, with Mark Twain, “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” Out and about, you can fill your arms with free paper-and-ink weeklies and special interest magazines, many of them stacked right next to Bay Weekly. What makes us different?
    The answer is sustainability.
    For me, that’s an easy word to define.
    In part, it means that this week you’re reading the 35th edition of Bay Weekly’s 23rd volume, our paper No. 1,133.
    Beyond numbers, sustainability means using what you’ve got so that it lasts.
    By that definition, Bay Weekly lives because you keep reading … because advertisers continue to support us and you to support them … because creative people — writers, proofreaders, salespeople, designers and assorted skills-lenders — continue to invest their time and energy in these pages — and all that synergy keeps the minds, presses and pages turning.
    There’s still more sustainability in these pages.
    For all those issues, over all those years, sustainability has been our subject. In story after story, the common theme is how we citizens of Chesapeake Country use what we’ve got so that there’s always more to draw on, not only for ourselves but for our children and their children, generations to come.
    Not that we’re preaching. Most of the time, you’ll hardly notice the long view enriching the up-close focus of our stories.
    This week, for example, our feature story takes you over the roads we drive. In Caution: Road Work Ahead, I asked contributing writer Diane Burt to take us beyond construction to how all the nuisances we endure as we drive — men at work, big machines, narrowed lanes, rough roadways — keep our roads supporting us. We can throw a lot away in our disposable culture, but not our roads. Once you put one down, it’s there to stay. Sustainability means upgrading our roads so they continue to meet our needs. I’ve made that phrase a mantra to help me keep my cool in five months of driving — and detouring — through roadwork.
    Sustainability is also the theme behind my own story, North Beach Designs Its Future: Four Days to a Plan-in-a-Nutshell.
    At 115 years old, North Beach must constantly redefine itself to keep up with the times and the people who, decade after decade, choose it as their hometown. We’ve watched it for 30 of those years as a close neighbor. The town has been a feature subject since 1993, Bay Weekly’s very first year.
    In that story 22 years ago, old friend Ruth Knack, then executive editor for the American Planning Association’s Planning Magazine, contributed a 12-step recipe for healthy towns.
    So I was fascinated when an American Planning Association team came to town this month to help North Beach refine its formula for sustainability. I found out how, and so will you.
    Long or short, sustainability helps Bay Weekly choose our stories. Sandy Point State Park, you’ll learn this week, is adding the sustainable power of wind and solar energy. Art for Warmth’s Sake, a preview of CalvArt Gallery’s upcoming art show and coat drive, is about sustaining warmth and avoiding waste.
    Sustaining your interest is our best source of staying power. So again this week for the 1,133rd time, we bring you stories that are good to read as well as good for you. That, of course, is thanks to the advertisers who sustain us.

Sandra Olivetti Martin
Editor and publisher; [email protected]