Ten months ago I walked out the doors of the Daily Pilot. For me it was a sad day. I guess I had always kind of figured that someday they’d just find me slumped over in the chair in my office and that would be it. Not a bad way to go.

In the following weeks and months, I took up residence in a small office 50 feet from the back door of the Goat Hill Tavern. You’ll recognize some of the names of my new office mates: Bill Lobdell, author and former editor for the Daily Pilot; Lana Johnson, the former promotions director for the Daily Pilot; Ron Katzman and Janet Vinograd, two of the best sales reps. ever at the Daily Pilot.

While some of them toiled in a successful web business called Greer’s OC, the bigger question for me and others was “What’s next? Where’s the income stream?”

Some people called from the community and suggested a return to the Pilot. Others pleaded with us to start a new, even better newspaper.

We looked and considered pretty much everything.

As our search turned to investors and capital, acquiring the Daily Pilot became a common theme. We explored bankruptcy court, where the Pilot resides and even got the attention of the Tribune’s investment banker in New York. But, in the end, everywhere we looked, no matter what the size of the rock, money was hard to find. This wasn’t the best time to raise money for a news operation.

For about 24 hours, we were depressed. But then we had an idea.

Which brings us to today.

Welcome to our new endeavor, the Newport-Mesa Daily Voice.

No large backers. No deep pockets. Just a group of us committed to providing Newport-Mesa with more local news, commentary and information, at a time when many news organizations are folding up shop.

We’ll start with some baby steps, but will grow up soon enough with the help of additional contributors and reader input. Stay tuned and you’ll see: the latest news posted whenever it happens; a fun and unique way to cover prep sports (we’ll tell you the secret this fall); community commentary from a diverse group of locals; and video for better editorial coverage and better results for advertisers.

We’ll also aggregate content from other local favorite sites so you can find everything about Newport-Mesa at one website.

As always, Newport-Mesa deserves a watchdog, a community forum where issues can be debated, a place where whatever is happening in the community can reside, and a community cheerleader when a cause needs championing.

It’s going to be blast. Here are a couple of things you can do for us: first, tell 10 friends about what we’re up to and then, have each of them tell 10 friends and so on. Also, when you have a good story idea, please tell us ASAP. If you want to be a contributor, please shoot us an e-mail. And please submit to us your organization’s events so we can publicize them.

We hope you’ll find that we’ll feel like an old, comfortable pair of shoes.

--Tom Johnson