10 Years of the Metro

What a difference a decade makes

By Dan Pulcrano, Editor

Back when highways were for cars and not information, the Santa Clara Valley wasn't so much a destination as a clutch of freeway offramps that flew by on the way to the beach or that now-smaller city to the north. And "the web" was a pattern that graced the thighs of South First Street's hookers, who took refuge behind Metro's front counter when vice was after them.

I spent a day in the summer of 1984 trying to convince David Cohen to sell his house and quit his job in L.A. to help start a weekly newspaper up here. I took him on a tour of the "metro" area, which included such cutting-edge attractions as the new Camera 3 cinemas, Eulipia restaurant and the Pacific Valley Bank building.

Foolishly he took the bait. Starting a weekly newspaper was a dubious proposition at best. An advertising agency owner had told me that this was an area where people mowed their lawns and coached Little League on weekends. A successful publisher said he wouldn't dare start a newspaper in a city that didn't have an identifiable nightclub district and visible gay community.

We didn't know any better, though, and neither did our idealistic staff, some of whom, like Candice Harris, Richard von Busack and Sharan Street, have stuck with us throughout the wild and woolly ride. Naive optimism isn't always the best quality for a green editor, however, and I'm still a little beet-cheeked about the time we let a concert promoter talk us into devoting the cover to a failing stadium concert to benefit victims of the Mexico City earthquake, following his assurances that the event would not be canceled under any circumstances. He, of course, pulled the plug several hours after we went to press, and the oversized front-page appeal to our readers' generosity--which read "HELP!" in humongous capital letters, in red ink, no less--screamed from piles around the valley that begged concertgoers to come to the all-star jam that would never happen.

To say things at the paper were dire financially in those days would be generous. Naturally, when things couldn't get any worse, Silicon Valley went into an employment slump, and San Jose and Mountain View decided to dig up their downtowns. Then Los Gatos was hit by an earthquake.

How dead were things in the late 1980s? Let's just say that one night while out partying in the street in front of where the Fairmont Hotel now stands, one member of Metro's management team fired up a gas-powered chainsaw that echoed throughout downtown without fear that there was a cop around--or anyone who would call one.

Somehow, we managed to stay out of both jail and debtor's prison, and Metro began getting on its feet in the 1990s. Operating under the questionable theory that several failing businesses might make a single successful one, we purchased two newspapers in Los Gatos, and one thing led to another. By 1995, Metro had become the flagship in a group of nine newspapers and four online services, with 145 employees staffing offices in Los Gatos, Saratoga, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa, all neatly linked together with high-speed data lines.

Santa Clara Valley has turned around nicely, too. From the ballet and symphony to concerts at Shoreline Amphitheatre and the San Jose Arena, it now offers a rich palette of cultural amenities. With a nightclub district and professional sports franchises, the lawns may get mowed less. Everyone, including members of gay and other minority communities, participates more fully in the valley's life than a decade ago.

On a more global level, presidents, movie stars and geniuses of every stripe regularly come to visit. Companies like Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems, Adobe and Netscape are pioneering technologies that will, pardon the cliché, change the world.

The local economy appears to be in the early stages of a boom as well. New leadership is taking over the area's political culture and institutions of higher education. And, most important, just about anywhere you go in the valley these days, you are not far from a good cup of espresso.

Through Metro and its associated newspapers, we have tried to contribute to the valley's improvement, by calling attention to positive changes; raising money for arts groups and social service organizations; pushing for better schools, parks and libraries; fighting for open government and citizen empowerment; championing responsible environmental and development policies; helping individuals and nonprofit groups experience the benefits of online technologies regardless of their financial resources; and making a quarter-million worth of donations last year to area organizations.

Those are a few of the things we stand for as a newspaper and a company. Metro remains locally owned, independent and committed to this area, even as it expands into other parts of the Bay Area and cyberspace.

It hasn't been easy building a group of newspapers from scratch over the past decade, but it has been fun. To all who have contributed in some way, we would like to say thanks. If we've slighted you, slammed you or stepped on a toe, we ask for your forgiveness. Hopefully we've learned something over the past decade and can do a better job henceforth.

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