Burbank Leader

To place and ad, call: 818-240-7878 or email kevin.davis@latimes.com Hours: Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Your photos: Upload a photo and it could be featured on the 818 now. You can submit your photos here or via our Flickr stream http://www.flickr.com/groups/the626_photos/ Your viewpoint: If you are thinking something, say something. We accept letters to the editor via email. The letters will be posted in our online mailbag and also in the print version of the Burbank Leader, Glendale News-Press or the La Canada Valley Sun. Please include your letter in an email to gnp@latimes.com along with your full name, phone number and city of residence.

Josh Kleinbaum Times Community News, a division of the Los Angeles Times, promoted its 2003 journalist of the year to managing editor of the Glendale News-Press, the Foothill Leader and Burbank Leader. Danette Goulet, 31, will oversee the newsroom operations of the three newspapers beginning on Jan. 3, managing a staff of 21 reporters, editors and photographers. "I love a new challenge, and I look forward to helping the Glendale News-Press, the Foothill Leader and the Burbank Leader be the strongest community papers in Southern California," Goulet said.

Tim Willert DOWNTOWN -- The Glendale News-Press and its sister papers, the Burbank Leader and the Foothill Leader, captured nine first- and second-place awards at the 2000 Better Newspapers Contest sponsored by the California Newspaper Publishers Assn. The awards were handed out Saturday in Monterey by a blue-ribbon panel of newspaper judges from outside California. "I think it's a real credit to the editorial staff of the newspapers," said Tom Johnson, Times Community News general manager.

On the eve of a complete redesign of the websites for the Burbank Leader and Glendale News-Press, I had the benefit of attending South by Southwest Interactive. Perhaps more known for the music festival, the interactive portion of SXSW in Austin, Texas, mid-March hosted some 12,000 people for exhibitions, discussions, panels, parties and, for the most part, all things tech. As the web editor for the Burbank Leader and the Glendale News-Press, I was in heaven talking Twitter, Web Hooks and live streaming — even though I didn’t get an invite from Ashton Kutcher for the VIP Foursquare party.

Judee Kendall For the past seven years, the Foothill Leader, along with its sister newspapers the Glendale News-Press and Burbank Leader, has been owned by the Times Mirror Co. All three of these community newspapers are part of Times Community News, which became a division of The Los Angeles Times just a year ago. During this time, we have formed a close business partnership with The Times and have found ways of working...

THIS WEEK Already a three-time champion, Jeff Tully is high stepping his way to a fourth crown this season, which will make it two in a row for the long-time sports editor of the Burbank Leader. Tully went 12-3 last week to improve to 64-26, which is three games ahead of Charles Rich, who has stumbled into second place. The others -- Hamlet Nalbandyan, Ken Biermann, Erik Boal and Edgar Melik-Stepanyan -- continue their lousy ways and are already thinking of next season.

Glendale News-Press Editor Dan Evans is scheduled to appear live on "The Larry Zarian Show" to discuss the latest in the developing story of Advanced Development & Investment Inc., the affordable housing company accused of fraud that also allegedly funneled thousands in campaign contributions to City Council members. Evans will also likely discuss the ongoing quest by the Burbank Leader, a sister paper of the News-Press, to obtain detailed city employee bonus payment data, and more definitive answers from Glendale Community College on why its police chief and lead captain were reportedly placed on administrative leave.

GLENDALE -- Terrence Thomas Donnelly, the publisher of the the Glendale News-Press and Burbank Leader from 1973 to 1975, has died. He was 74. on Dec. 29, 1999, at his home in Glendale. He was 74. Donnelly died at his home in Glendale on Dec. 29. He made the newspaper business his life's work, family members said. He began his career in the 1950s at the Monrovia Daily News and went on to purchase the La Verne Leader and the San Dimas Press. He was the publisher of both papers until the early 1960s.

GLENDALE — Gordon Tomaske, publisher of the Glendale News-Press, Burbank Leader, La Canada Valley Sun and Crescenta Valley Sun, has been promoted to director of operations for the Los Angeles Times’ Targeted Media Division little more than a year after he took over in March 2007 as the third publisher in as many years. The Targeted Media Division oversees Times Community News, of which the News-Press is a part. Together with its sister publications, the Burbank Leader, La Canada Valley Sun and Crescenta Valley Sun, the News-Press will be placed under the more direct purview of Times Community News General Manager Tom Johnson, who is based in Costa Mesa.

I'm doing this old school. I'm sitting in a hotel bar, typing out this column, madly trying to make deadline and keep my award-winning copy and design desks happy. All I'm lacking is a cigar and a green eyeshade. The news: I am proud to announce that Times Community News has won a total of 22 first- and second-place awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Assn. The CNPA honored work done in 2011 by scores of daily and weekly California newspapers Saturday, and our little publications took home quite the haul.

In his first State of the City address, Burbank Mayor Jess Talamantes on Wednesday gave an upbeat, optimistic assessment of the city's economic standing, saying that the city has weathered the economic storm. Speaking to large crowd at the Marriott Burbank Airport Hotel, Talamantes focused on the positive, highlighting in an onstage panel discussion the ability of the health care industry, the real estate market, educators and businesses to stand their ground, or even expand, despite a recession.

To place and ad, call: 818-240-7878 or email kevin.davis@latimes.com Hours: Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Your photos: Upload a photo and it could be featured on the 818 now. You can submit your photos here or via our Flickr stream http://www.flickr.com/groups/the626_photos/ Your viewpoint: If you are thinking something, say something. We accept letters to the editor via email. The letters will be posted in our online mailbag and also in the print version of the Burbank Leader, Glendale News-Press or the La Canada Valley Sun. Please include your letter in an email to gnp@latimes.com along with your full name, phone number and city of residence.

After seeing the list of Burbank city employees who received merit bonuses, I have a question about 10 employees in the city attorney's office who last year were awarded bonuses ranging from $3,500 to $6,500 for a total of $46,000. Members of this group include one chief assistant city attorney, seven senior assistant city attorneys, one assistant city attorney and one deputy city attorney. These 10 employees all have law degrees, and according to their job specifications, must have membership in the State Bar of California.

Hundreds of Burbank city employees have received a collective $4 million in bonuses since July 2007, according to documents the city fought in court to keep out of public view. A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge in May ordered city officials to release bonus pay amounts for individual employees to the Burbank Leader, which sued to obtain the information after its public records request was denied under the auspice that it would harm employee morale and violate workplace privacy rules.

The decision by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge on Friday to side with the Burbank Leader in its lawsuit to force Burbank officials to divulge per-employee bonus payouts should serve as notice to local governments: The public has a right to know exactly how their tax dollars are being spent. It’s not as if the decision was unexpected — at least not among people with a firm grasp of public records law. Court decisions in similar cases have repeatedly sided with the public’s right to know, which is why the decision by Burbank city officials to fight the Leader’s records request every step of the way begs a flurry of questions.

This is a big day for us. On Saturday, the California Newspaper Publishers Association awarded the Burbank Leader three first-place prizes. This included the grand prize for “General Excellence,” an honor that recognizes the entirety of the paper: from its news coverage to its sports coverage; from its columnists to its opinion pages; from its layout to its photography. The Leader was also honored with separate first-place awards for its design and its website. I want to particularly thank Matt Wilkes for his continually award-winning work on the design side.

Now that we've gotten the Sunday News-Press & Leader off the ground, it's time to celebrate. Please stop by our launch party from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at our offices: 221 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale. You'll need to let us know you're coming so we have enough food and drinks. Drop us a line at (818) 637-3254. The launch of the Sunday edition, though important for us, is hardly the only thing going on these days. Both Burbank and Glendale are gearing up for their respective elections.

Welcome to the Sunday News-Press & Leader. You are looking at a piece of history, as this is the first Sunday edition of either paper in 26 years. And, indeed, that short-lived experiment from September 1983 to January 1985 may very well have been the only Sunday edition ever published in the 100-year-plus history of either the Burbank Leader or Glendale News-Press. On Friday, I braved the back room of our newspaper office — charmingly called "the morgue" — trying to find additional Sunday editions.