Is it a Local Weekly Newspaper?

I have a big problem referring to the Call as a newspaper. That’s why I like to refer to them as the weakly newspaper. Who are they kidding? They have a Monday evening deadline and the paper is delivered on Thursday. The supposed news in the paper can be ten days old. That’s not even considering their preference to bring up even older news to run even further into the ground. Then you have to consider they have no respect for journalistic standards whatsoever. This includes no sense of balance or a concern for accuracy. It would better referred to as direct mail or trash.
I also find it a bit humorous that they think their local. They have their newspaper printed in Louisiana, Missouri at a place called Press Journal Printing. This is, of course, to avoid paying for the local, higher union wages in the St. Louis area. Mr. Milligan is only as liberal as your pocketbook extends not his.

Can the "Call" be Embarrassed?

I thought I might share with you the thoughts of Webster University Professor and the former editor of the St. Louis Journalism Review.

Mr. Heins,
Over the years I've had several complaints about the Call and we've done two pieces but I'm afraid embarrassment has no effect.

Ed Bishop
Editor
St. Louis Journalism Review

Well Ed, maybe they weren’t embarrassed enough.
Mike

Schools are to Blame?

In Saturday’s St. Louis Post Dispatch article about the suspect in Officer Brown’s tragic shooting death, much blame was assigned to the St. Louis Public Schools. Robbyn Wahby, Mayor Slay’s executive assistant for education complained, “Mostly, the schools are not taking responsibility for what they need to be doing for these children.”
Such an opinion based on these facts is ludicrous.
Here was someone who didn’t enroll for the 05-06 school year, missed 62 days last year and we are told it’s the fault of the school district he hasn’t been successful.
This killing was a result of an individual not respecting the value of another’s life. It’s a damn shame. But the responsibility belongs to the individual. If you want to help kids from falling through the cracks, I suggest you start providing the staff with the Missouri Social Services Department with the resources to deal with the overwhelming numbers of children whose family’s can’t or won’t deal with them. Blaming the schools may be popular but it’s flat wrong.
Mike Heins

Advertise With Integrity

Where can an advertiser go to find some decent folks to spend their advertising dollars here in South County? There’s always our daily newspaper, the St. Louis Post Dispatch. In addition, we have a weekly paper, the Suburban Journal. If you’re looking for some direct mail saturation, I’d suggest Shop Wise at 888-876-ADVO or the coupon type mailer "Money Mailer" , call 314 504 0800. Also, we have the Coffee News. It’s a pleasant little free sheet distributed by over 100 area businesses at their locations. Call 651-3000. In addition, there’s the Mehlville Messenger. This highly acclaimed school district newsletter is delivered over much of South County with very favorable advertising rates. Call 467-5152 for more information. There’s quite a bit to choose from. There’s no reason to tarnish your business’s reputation by dealing with an advertiser with little integrity!

Choosing a Real Estate Agent

Choosing a Real Estate Agent

Tips for a Successful Sale of Your Home
In South St. Louis County

The average homeowner in South St. Louis County will spend over $10,000 in fees to sell their home. It pays to do some homework prior to listing your home with a real estate agent. Follow this advice and you will save yourself a lot of trouble and perhaps a little money.
The most important thing you can do is to interview several potential agents. Don’t stop at one! You must compare. This is the time when agents must really compete and you need to let them.
I normally don’t recommend two types of agents: Relatives/ Friends and agents that advertise in the Call Newspapers. I’m not saying never use them, but you should understand the pitfalls.
The reason I don’t recommend relatives or friends is I don’t like to hire someone I can’t fire. If you think your wife’s cousin will be disappointed in you for not listing with her, imagine the fuss she’d make if you cut her loose after not successfully closing on your sale. The reasons I can’t recommend an agent that advertises in the Call are numerous. The main one is that today’s housing market demands speed. This weakly paper is not really printing the news, they are printing history and not doing a very good job of it. Additionally, they have some serious questions surrounding their integrity. I don’t know why a reputable agent would want to be associated with it. You’re better off choosing an agent that’s up to date and cares about his/her reputation.

NCLB Holding Schools Hostage

In the very near future, we will be inundated with media coverage of last year’s test results for Missouri’s public schools. The news here in South County is that 4 of our Mehlville Schools will be on the “needs improvement list” according to the standards of the No Child Left Behind. What is really important for the parents of these schools to know is that this rating is nonsense. Without going into a long diatribe about the intent and unrealistic expectations of the NCLB law, let me explain. The law breaks the children into groups, even if the title infers singularity. If a group fails to meet standards, so does the school. A group is only counted if there is a certain amount, I think it’s 25. So if School A has 24 Hispanic kids, it doesn’t matter how they do on their test. If school B has 25 and they just moved here from Brazil last year and they don’t read English so well, your school fails. If you are a parent of one of this children this may concern you, but for the rest of the parents, I wouldn’t think so much. My blood pressure can really start to rise when I think of how silly this law is. I can understand how the liberals in Congress thought that spending a lot of money on this lunacy was a good thing. Here’s what I don’t understand. How did conservatives leave their good senses long enough to pass a law that holds schools solely accountable for the education of a child instead of the child, his/her parents, the community and the school together? Change the law!

Good News for Mehlville School District Tax Payers

Good News for Mehlville School District Tax Payers

You heard it here first. The 49-cent tax increase or Prop P, approved by Mehlville School District voters in Nov. 2000, will not be levied for 20 years. Due to favorable market conditions and wise decisions made by the Mehlville Board of Education, sufficient revenue will allow the district to pay off their bonds in just 13 years. While much credit must go to our investment bankers at A. G. Edwards, congratulations are in order for the district’s administrators. These include former CFOs Dr. Randall Charles and Stephen Kaiser along with current CFO Brent Bell. The former superintendents were John Cary and Dr. Tim Ricker along with current superintendent Mr. Terry Noble.

Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,
Another week rolls by and yet the Call doesn't print any of my letters. It's because of this censorship that I've had to start my own blog. I just wanted to again offer you or anyone from the Call, an opportunity to correct any mistakes I make at any time. You know that I've always tried to get you to look my information over before I print it, but you refuse to comment on anything. I've even copied many of my letters to your attorneys; well not all of your attorneys. Who could afford to write certified letters to all of your attorneys? I just sent them to the office of your last defense attorney and the attorneys for the MO Press Assoc. and your last Sunshine Law attorneys. As I've said before, if there's anything you don't believe, just pony up the money for a polygraph test. I'd be glad to take one. I think it'd be really cool. http://southcountynews.blogspot.com/
Mike Heins

written exclusively for the Call and my blog

End Trash in Your Mailbox

Many S. County citizens and advertisers don’t know that the Call is not delivered to all households as they advertise. This is just another example of a lack of integrity on the part of our weakly newspaper!
I live in their distribution area and have not received a Call in over a year. Like many people, our family decided we did not want to receive this trash in our mailbox every week. I sent a certified letter to the Call and asked to be removed from their mailing list. I followed up with e-mails to their publisher Deborah Baker Milligan.
Here’s what Baker Milligan sent me.
Sunday, June 4, 2006
Dear Mr. Heins: I have just returned to work and I wanted to let you know that I forwarded an earlier e-mail received before I left to Bill Milligan, General Manager, who handles requests concerning delivery of the Call. I believe he has explained that the labels are printed several weeks ahead. Your request has been submitted to the circulation department and the delivery of the newspaper should stop within a few short weeks. I am sorry for the delay in my reply but,I want to make it clear that your request should be directed to Bill Milligan, General Manager. I also want to make it clear your request has been addressed if you can just bear with us since the labels are printed ahead. Thank you for you patience. Deb Baker, Publisher
If you would like less trash in your mailbox, I suggest you e-mail Mr. Bill Milligan at wmilligan@callnewspapers.com If after 6 weeks you continue to receive the Call, e-mail me and I’ll help you file a complaint with the postal service. Mike

I'll Accept the Blame.

About six years ago, I received an invitation from our school district to volunteer for the redistricting committee. We were changing from 11 elementary schools to ten. A lot of children would be forced to change schools. I thought about what a difficult challenge that would be. I expected a lot of unhappy parents making major changes like that. I was reluctant to fill out the form. I put it down, probably hoping not to pick it back up to it until it was to late to join. Then I opened up an envelope from the Boy Scouts. It was my approval as a merit badge counselor for Citizenship in the Community. Great, I thought. How can you teach young men to be active citizens unless you lead through example? I mailed in my application to the school district. A couple of meetings into the process, we picked co-chairs. I volunteered again. I thought to myself how a lot of people were going to be upset and how they would blame me. I was prepared to shoulder that blame. Things went much better than I had expected. In fact, very few people were upset. I believe this was due to the great parents on the committee. I think most community felt we did the best we could.
Serving on the school board was a little different. You get lots of credit and blame for things for which you have little or no control. Such is the nature of school board service. I could make a list a mile long: your school doesn’t have a pool or tennis courts, your daughter got cut from cheerleading, AP Chemistry is not offered this semester, there’s not enough parking, etc. You learn to live the complaining. Recently I saw some old complaints renewed about my service on the board. This disappoints me. They weren’t appropriate years ago and continue to cast a negative image about our schools. Having written that, let me say to anyone who wants to blame for something they don’t like about their teacher, their school or our district. Go ahead; blame me, if this gives you some comfort. I willingly accept the blame. I just have one request. Afterwards, get on with your life. Stop clinging to your excuses! Support your teacher, your school, your school board, yours school district and your community.

The Call Newspapers and the Law

I’m sure most of you are aware of Missouri’s Sunshine Law. Our weakly newspaper mentions it often in their self-promoting articles. When a public entity, such as the City of Crestwood, gets a request for a record, they must produce that record within 72 hours. There are a few exceptions, but that’s the general idea. When the Call doesn’t get their request in 72 hours, they start threatening litigation and sometimes waste a lot of time and money on lawsuits. In the last two years, over one hundred thousand of your tax dollars have been wasted due to this frivolity. Recently I noticed the Call had not paid their property taxes. After contacting the Call repeatedly, they paid them on July 3, 2007. That was 180 days or 4,320 hours late. It amazes me how Mr. Milligan and Mr. Anthony can concentrate on one law, yet have such little respect for all the others. See below for other laws they ignore.