Week in Review

Our debut week was pretty lively news-wise, which is not always the case around the holidays.  Beaumont released about its fiscal health, and I got to shoot some interesting photos of the big new bridge project on Potrero Road that the city is building.  Beaumont isn't just into new items; it has preserved what may be the last remaining in Riverside County, and Pat Murkland wrote one of the week's most popular stories about it.

The second-most popular story was about the mayoral election by the Banning City Council, which selected as the new mayor.  It generated the most commments, too, a couple of them by me.  And the winner was:  a story about how, at the last minute, decided not to close Interstate 10 on the Friday night that marked the first evening of Christmas break for students.  But CALTRANS still has plans to close the road on Monday and Tuesday nights.

Also popular was our tale of two , the polished professional ballerina Julia Olsen-Rodriguez and 14 year-old Sarai Bates, a serious student of dance.  Julia danced with California Riverside Ballet, Sarai with Beaumont's Studio.  Julia uploaded some photos from her experience after the story was published, making her the first Banning-Beaumont Patcher to do so.  It made me happy;  in my opinion, you can't have too many pictures of ballerinas.

Some tales from the dark side also ran this week.  Authorities charged  with the murder of his mother, and charges of kidnapping and robbery were filed against a man accused of robbing lots of dough from the