Council hears options for railway, gets feedback on Shafter Press decision

Jamie Stewart, The Shafter Press | Last updated Jun 16, 2024 6:30pm0

Jamie Stewart | The Shafter Press and Wasco Tribune count

Shafter Press owner Stan Wilson speaks to the council about a partnership proposal between the city and paper.

The Shafter City Council heard a couple of different options for their Shafter Railway at their meeting last week.

The first option was to be purchased by BNSF, which is used to connect to their main line.

The second option was to be used by third party transporters for their products, including connecting the two coasts.

[Wonderful Company also has an interest in the railway. See separate story on Page 1.]

There will be further discussion on the topic, with both options having merit, Mayor Chad Givens said.

Because Shafter's facility connects and runs to the BNSF mainline, it could serve as an active siding and railcar train storage for BNSF.

The city's market research team contacted BNSF local management to gauge interest in the carrier's use of Shafter's tracks.

Both the local superintendent, who is based in Bakersfield, and the general manager were interested in using the facility. It is likely that they may want to purchase the facility rather than lease or operate it, according to the city.

During the public comment section of the meeting, local historian and the Shafter Press owner Stan Wilson criticized the council on its decision at their last meeting to reject a proposal made by The Shafter Press newspaper.

`It was proposed that the city partner with the newspaper promoting Shafter with a full-page paid ads in the paper every other week. The deal would include other benefits, including help with communications with residents. Wilson pointed out that when Reed Print originally closed the paper nearly six years ago, it was then-Mayor Cathy Prout and the city who approached Wilson and several others about saving the city's newspaper.

Wilson also said that it is very important for a city to have a local paper, saying it serves as its voice and vital information for the community. "When approached, several community members stepped up to help with saving the paper. We never intended to make a lot of money on this project, but we did it to save a part of our city's history."

Wilson also said that although social media is very popular now, a lot of people do not use social media. He said that the paper also publishes needed legal notices, publishes articles about local schools, businesses, and clubs.

Mayor Givens commented during council reports. "I have grown up with The Press, looking through the papers. I believe that there are things we and the community can do to support the paper. I do believe that everyone has an ability for free speech, and a community deserves a free press, and I know that something can and will be done."

Givens went on to say that Wilson is one of the main sources of Shafter's story and he believes that something will be done to allow this story to be told, though gave no details.

'We believe we have achieved our goal..'

Stan Wilson, The Shafter Press

Shafter-Wasco Publishing owner Stanley Wilson presented these remarks at Tuesday night’s Shafter City Council meeting.

My name is Stanley Wilson and I am one of the owners of Shafter-Wasco Publishing, publishers of The Shafter Press and Wasco Tribune.

As you know we had a proposed contract on the May 21st council agenda. I was sorry that I was not here to speak to the proposal. On ,May 16, I consulted the Shafter city website and found the notice that the May 21st meeting had been canceled. I visited the bulletin board outside City Hall chambers on May 20 and found the same notice. Neither notice indicated the meeting had been rescheduled to May 22, Our editor, Jamie Stewart, ran across the same notice and was not here last council meeting either. I assumed that all had been rescheduled to the June 4 meeting. I know that you were able to get the word out to a number of people due to the all the award recipients being here at the last session. After learning of the rescheduled meeting afterwards, I was able to watch the video posted of the council meeting May 22. The position of city management and the Council came through loud and clear – that you were not interested in our proposal.

We had hoped that the proposal would initiate some discussion of how we could help the city publish information on a regular basis. This proposal could have been mutually beneficial to both the city and The Press.

I would like to remind the Council that when the Reed Family closed The Shafter Press in December of 2017, it was city management and the mayor who initiated discussion on how to save and continue the paper. Several of your community members stepped up to the plate. Under no circumstance was the investment in the local paper ever considered to be one which would return profits. Instead it was an philanthropic effort to preserve for the Shafter community a newspaper that would reflect what was going on in the Shafter community, not only regarding city government, but to further the sense of community with articles on schools, sports, clubs, businesses and the people of Shafter.

Even though covid caused us to combine The Shafter Press with the Wasco Tribune, we believe we have achieved our goal, doing the best we could with a very limited budget.

There are about 1,400 papers picked up throughout town each week. If one figures two readers per paper, that is 2,800 readers, not counting the papers read and shared in the barbershops and restaurants. In addition, we are sending out 200 paid mail subscriptions, and there are an average of 1,000 visitors to our website per week. Altogether, we estimate we are reaching approximately 5,000 of your citizens each week. Many of these readers are not using social media to get their information. Our medium is not instant, but for the most part it doesn’t have to be. We give advance notice of things to come and review things that have already happened, as well as presenting stories about our local people and businesses.

There is seldom a week goes by that I do not receive a comment regarding articles in the paper. Many people have expressed appreciation to me that we have continued to keep the paper going. However, the business community has not kept up in the use of the paper for local advertising. It was for this reason that we offered a contract with the city. It has become more and more difficult to support continued operation of the paper with limited revenue.

Thank you for allowing me share my comments.