Ten years and counting

This issue marks ten years of Cedar Mill News! We published the first issue in January 2003. It was an experiment to raise awareness about the Cedar Mill Business Association. A small group of CMBA members sat around a table at a local restaurant, discussing why we attended meetings. It all boiled down to gossip! We wanted to know what was going on in the community. So we decided to try a newsletter.

The first issue was one single page, and was intended for distribution among the local businesses. It soon became clear that we had a broader audience and the paper expanded. Pacific Office Automation agreed to let us print it for free on their high-speed copiers. The CMBA sponsored the publication for the first years.

The Cornell Road project was just getting underway. And then along came Beaverton’s annexation push, and then the Walmart proposal, and the Timberland development. Plenty to write about! Content and advertising expanded to the current 12 pages.

In January of 2007, Copytronix agreed to let us use their equipment to print. Our online subscriber base was growing. We were printing 600 copies for distribution around the community, but another 800-900 people had signed up to get it via an email link to web pages or a PDF file.

In February 2011, The Cedar Mill News became independent from the Cedar Mill Business Association. This allowed us to cover non-member businesses and we discontinued the member discount on advertising.

Today, we’re up to nearly 1800 online subscribers, so with the 600 paper copies that are distributed each month, we reach a good portion of the 5412 Cedar Mill households listed in the 2010 census. We’re gratified that in this age of media consolidation and shrinkage, the community and businesses choose to support this “hyper-local” outlet for community news. We still find folks who haven’t heard about us yet, so if you like The News, tell your friends!

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