YachatsNews to add three features to website starting Monday, Sept. 9

A note to YachatsNews.com readers:

I’m happy to announce some small but noteworthy enhancements coming to YachatsNews.com starting Monday, Sept. 9.

The additions are intended to both broaden and deepen the appeal of the website. But first some background.

I started YachatsNews.com in January as a community service. By the end of February it had about 1,400 “unique” visitors and 7,000 page views over a 30-day period. By the end of August that grew to almost 5,000 users and 15,000 page views a month. That’s apparently pretty good for a site that focuses pretty narrowly on the Yachats area and applicable news of Waldport, Lincoln County and the central Oregon coast.

With the help of a full-service brokerage company owned by an ex-colleague at The Oregonian, I started accepting advertising in May. That has helped a little to defray some ongoing expenses – which average $200 a month — like website tweaks, maintenance and sporadic pay to freelance writers.

Starting Monday, YachatsNews will:

• Begin accepting obituaries from any funeral home or family wishing to reach the site’s readers. Like most sites or newspapers, there will be a small charge. There is a gap in reaching people in this part of the coast; this may help. You can email them to YachatsNews@gmail.com
• Begin accepting “Letters to the Editor.” I hope these will be on local or coastal topics and issues, although for the time being subjects will be wide open. But there will be limits on length and all letters will be verified. These will be different than your current ability to “comment” on published stories – you pick the topic. Email letters to YachatsNews@gmail.com
• Start aggregating news from police and fire agencies under the heading “Police/Fire News.” This will include unfiltered “blotter” material from various agencies, alerts, links to websites, announcements, and/or minutes from meetings – details that oftentimes don’t reach the threshold of a traditional news story but may be of interest to some readers.

I am also contemplating adding an area on the website for state government and Oregon political news provided by a Salem-based bureau operated by two newspaper groups. This would be to help provide news and context of state government that I have found hard to come by on the Oregon coast.

And, with additional financing – not sure where that’s coming from yet – I’d like to greatly expand offerings involving local entertainment, outdoor activities, the arts and community events. To do this well I’d have to pay someone, so I’m still figuring out how to do that or if it’s even possible.

That’s it. I hope you are enjoying the news site. If you have comments, thoughts and ideas on ways to build financial support to make these and other enhancements, please feel free to contact me via email at YachatsNews@gmail.com