Growing Pains : New Santa Ana Magazine Runs Into Some Snags

Times are tough at Santa Ana Magazine, a slick publication that began just five months ago as a unique cooperative venture between the City of Santa Ana and publisher Dayle Thomas.

Santa Ana provided $300,000 as “seed money” to help the magazine get off the ground and help it for a two-year period. Eventually, officials hope, the magazine will be advertiser-supported.

The city also signed a two-year contract in August calling for Thomas to publish 100,000 monthly issues that would be mailed to all 90,000 residences and businesses in the city. Santa Ana controls 75% of the content, much of it decidedly pro-city in tone, and everything that used to be mailed to the citizenry on recreation and other public services in a number of separate publications was incorporated into the magazine.

But many residents are still waiting for the latest copy to arrive on their doorsteps.

The March issue, finally printed 10 days into the month, totaled only about 32,000 copies, in violation of the contract’s stipulation for “at least” 100,000. To complicate matters, some employees complained that they had not been paid.

It’s all normal for a new magazine, said Thomas, who added that the city’s $300,000 barely pays for the postage.

“Being related to the city does not make a start-up magazine magic,” she said. She is not sure whether any more copies of the March issue will be printed, she said.

Thomas said only a few people are still awaiting paychecks and reiterated that financial difficulties are not unusual with any new publication.

“This is not something that’s flush with money,” she said. “We really need people who will come together as a team for us.”

Magazine Being ‘Reevaluated’

City Manager Robert C. Bobb said Santa Ana is “reevaluating” the magazine because of the problems and a high turnover rate in the magazine’s administration, including the departure of at least two editors, an associate publisher and an advertising manager. He said he will probably talk to Thomas today to ensure that all 100,000 copies are printed. “We have information regarding our programs that has to get out to every resident of Santa Ana,” he said.

Thomas said she is not contemplating closing down the magazine. The problems, she said, are “something that nobody likes and I do not as a publisher treat it lightly. But it’s not that earthshaking.”

Although Bobb admitted some concern over the operation, he said he is pleased with the magazine itself, adding only that he would like to see fewer government-oriented stories. “I think it’s a very excellent product,” he said.

Vice Mayor P. Lee Johnson said he would be angry if the magazine did not make the 100,000-circulation figure. “I would be willing to terminate their contract if that’s true,” he said.

Content Being Streamlined

While Johnson believes that the magazine is an attractive product, he echoed Bobb’s comment on the amount of local government stories.

The magazine is moving toward more balanced reporting and elimination of some of the more frivolous content of the first few issues, said Howard Millman, who has been hired as the art designer. For example, a column penned by “Pyewacket the Dog” has disappeared from the latest issue.

“The fifth issue, in my opinion, is the best so far,” said Thomas, citing a profile of developer Brandon Birtcher as an example of the improved content.

Some former employees stressed that they were never paid for their work or had to go to great lengths to get their paychecks.

Aida Ramirez, who works as a photographer and public relations person for Neighborhood News, a weekly Santa Ana newspaper, sold an advertisement for the magazine’s first issue in November. She said had difficulty getting her 15% commission on the $860 ad.

Ramirez said she made repeated phone calls to Thomas but got no reply, was stymied in talking to other magazine staffers and got action only after a columnist in her newspaper mentioned the problem and a city employee took action. She was paid three weeks ago.

“It wasn’t that much,” she admitted. “It’s just the principle of the thing. Nobody wants to work for nothing.”

Three other part-time employees contacted said the magazine had either failed to pay them or did not do so until they went to great lengths to get their money.