PD Editorial: Introducing our newest editorial board member

In 2014, The Press Democrat started a program in which we invite members of the community to join our editorial board, allowing us to benefit from their expertise and insight and knowledge of Sonoma County.

The community members help us shape the paper's positions, including election recommendations, which appear here on the editorial page. And we hope they share their experience here with other members of the community.

Today, we're pleased to introduce our newest community member, Mick Menendez of Santa Rosa. He will join the board beginning April 26 and be with us for 12-18 months.

Menendez, the director of advanced planning for Pacific Advisors, has been active in local business and community organizations since moving to Santa Rosa in 1980. He served on the board of Kid Street Theater (now Kid Street Learning Center) and the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts. He was a regent at Cardinal Newman High School, a founding member of the Elsie Allen High School Foundation and helped establish a scholarship fund for Hispanic business students at Sonoma State University.

Menendez also served on the Santa Rosa Planning Commission and the finance committee of the Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa and was twice president of the Sonoma County Alliance. He was born and raised in San Francisco and studied communications at San Francisco State University.

Menendez is the 11th person to serve as a community member of the editorial board. He will succeed Lorez Bailey, the executive director of Chop’s Teen Club in Santa Rosa. She joined our board 19 months ago, and we are enormously grateful for the time and energy she has devoted as well as for her suggestions, comments and insights.

Our permanent editorial board members are Steve Falk, the CEO of The Press Democrat and our parent company Sonoma Media Investments, and Editorial Director Jim Sweeney. Our second community board member is Judy Coffey, a senior consultant for Leap Solutions and a retired Kaiser executive. She joined us a little over a year ago and will remain on the board for several more months.

The editorial board doesn't assign or edit news articles. Our bailiwick includes the daily editorial pages, the Sunday Forum section and the opinion section at pressdemocrat.com. The community board members take part in our regular meetings, including interviews with newsmakers, community leaders, advocates, elected officials and candidates for public office. They help form our editorial positions. And, if they choose, they’re invited to write their opinions.

We frequently hear from people who are interested in joining the board or who want to recommend other community members. We appreciate the interest — and we hang on to the notes and resumes we receive. The breadth of talent and experience in our community is truly impressive. Narrowing the list is challenging, and we have met many people who we hope to invite to join the editorial board in the future. But we’re always interested in hearing from more people who would like to participate. Send a note or resume to jim.sweeney@pressdemocrat.com.

As always, our goal is to facilitate an exchange of perspectives and opinions. We invite all of our readers to share their views, and to keep our Let the Public Speak section lively, by sending letters to letters@pressdemocrat.com.