Hanford Sentinel lays off 12

12 employees were laid off Wednesday. The memo:

To: LCCN Employees
Re: Reduction in Force & Restructure
Date: January 7, 2009

This afternoon, we are making a difficult announcement. It is difficult because for the first quarter of this year we accomplished the goals we set for ourselves - the things we control. But there are many things we can't control. Our local, state and national economies continue to struggle. Because of this, we are making necessary adjustments early in anticipation of a rough second quarter. To that end, we are reducing our workforce by 12 full time positions. None of these positions are in our newsrooms. Most of these positions revolve around our non-core production capabilities.

To accommodate this reduction, we are also restructuring some positions in Advertising and Production.

The pre-press department in Hanford & Selma will now report to Jackie Kaczmarek, press & mail operations in Selma and Hanford will be managed by Ken Horiuchi who will report to Rich Glasson. Also, we've created a position in production that will manage consumption of paper, ink and other production supplies. This position will also report to Rich Glasson.

Earlier in the week we restructured Advertising with the move of Angela Stow to Selma, Frank Carreiro to Kingsburg and Jimmy Fryar to Ad Manager in Hanford. Also, Jennifer Fawkes and the advertising artists will now report to Jimmy Fryar.

Attached you will find the new structures for Advertising and Production

These reductions and restructure will allow us to provide our current list of services, including commercial print, to a shorter list of accounts. It also allows us to grow with the economy in the future.

But it can't stop there; we need your best work. Remember that our readers and advertisers are going through a lot of the same trials we are. We need to be an important part of their day. We need to provide them with news and information that they will miss if they don't read us for one day.

We all decided to get into this business because of a passion for newspapers, don't short-change this passion because of things that are out of our control. Effort, dedication to our job and a positive influence on our work environment are all things we can control. If we focus on these things, it will make the tough times more manageable. It will also make the good times even greater when they get here.