Introducing Some Finest People

I love eating out. Most Wednesday nights, after the newspaper is put to bed, you can find Mary O’Keefe and me over at Montrose Town on Honolulu Avenue discussing how things went and talking about next week’s stories.

On Monday, my best friend Amy and I headed to Morton’s Steakhouse in Burbank to spend a gift card on a delicious meal. When I’m desiring Mexican food it’s either off to Pepe’s on Honolulu or Los Gringos Locos (both longtime Prom Plus supporters) for some delicious tacos and guacamole.

I admit it – I enjoy the finer things. Which is why I surround myself with fine people.

Last week I teased some details about this year’s Finest winners and how some are going to be familiar to readers of CV Weekly while others will be new. These are the people who, through their businesses or because of their volunteerism, have been recognized as the best.

Inserted into this week’s paper is our annual The Finest magazine that highlights many of these people and businesses. This is the eighth year that the Crescenta Valley Weekly has pulled together this magazine that gives a voice to who and what our community thinks are the best around. It gives me a deep sense of pride – and a sense of accomplishment – to provide this service to the Crescenta Valley. As a personal testimony of the importance of The Finest, let me share with you that when a member of my family needed a cardiologist – immediately – it was to The Finest that I turned in order to locate the best one. Four years later, Dr. Lee continues to be our doctor and continues to be voted The Finest.

As you might imagine, organizing The Finest is an intensive undertaking. I don’t hire additional people to help, aside from people who tally; the crew that works on the weekly newspaper also puts their skills to use in designing, selling and distributing the Finest. I would like to introduce you to some of them.

Rachelle Miller is our office manager and is overseeing sales in the Glendale area. She is the first person most people speak to when they call the office and is always ready to lend a hand. When Finest season comes around, she is in charge of tallying the ballots and often works with others charged with counting the thousands of votes we get.

Lisa Stanners and Sonya Marquez are our dynamic sales force. Once the Finest winners are determined, they go out to congratulate the winners, present their certificates and alert them to the advertising opportunities in The Finest magazine. This year Mark Shelton and Rachelle helped them with this task.

Our design team of Steve Hernandez and Matt Barger are the magic behind the magazine. When an advertisement needs to be designed, it’s Matt who handles that. Looking over The Finest, you’ll see much of his work on the pages. Steve takes care of laying out the pages. He determines the number of the pages and designs each and every one. These two make sure the magazine is as beautiful as it is.

Our printer for this unique piece is Advanced Web Offset – AWO. They have printed up The Finest these last several years and made sure to get them to our newspaper publisher – Newspublishers Press in Glendale – so they’re ready to be inserted into the paper.

While this is going on we’re planning a celebratory party to congratulate the winners – this year the party is being held at St. Luke’s of the Mountains – and still getting the paper out each week.

I may be prejudiced, but I think the staff of the CV Weekly is truly The Finest around.

  robin goldsworthy