The South County's calendar is marked by community events such as Chula Vista's Taste-of-the-Arts, the Taste of National City, National City's Automotive Heritage Day and Bonitafest. The Star-News champions them all, as well as producing special sections and souvenir programs.

The Star-News' editorial policy is an open book. We're a community newspaper. So we make no apology about promoting our community.

The more ads we can sell, the more news pages we can offer. And those pages carry as many community stories as space will permit. But we're not content to just be a mouthpiece for local bureaucrats and politicians.

During 2002 we exposed scandals and examined apparent mysteries. Readers phoned The Star-News with tips and suggestions. This has been an invaluable way community support has enabled us to produce quality stories.

Our chief news reporter Laura Mallgren won an award for 'best investigative story (non-daily)' with a story about Otay Water District spending what seemed like a disproportionate amount of its budget on internal legal wrangles.

Our award-winning sports and entertainment editor Philip Brents extended our coverage to offer more analysis and results of South County sports than any other publication could.

And, when members of the community wanted to share some burning issue, we've been pleased to provide a lively forum on our letters page. In June, we smartened up the format of The Star-News to our readers', almost unanimous, approval.

In August, The Star-News was purchased by Danny and Eddie Verdugo. Their energy and their positive attitude has been nothing but beneficial. As a key member of San Deigo Neighborhood Newspapers Inc., The Star-News is poised to achieve great things in 2003.

As we approached the Nov. 5 elections, there were some who said The Star-News should endorse certain candidates. We chose not to. Instead we reported the stories thrown up by some of the campaigns. And we gave maximum space to all the candidates to put their best case to our readers. On election day, our readers cast their ballots and their preferred candidates are now our representatives. In 2003 we'll be reporting on how those representatives fulfill their mandates.

But, hanging like a pall over all of this good stuff, is the knowledge that some of our neighbors and family members in the military are on active duty defending the community.

Without any reservation or ambiguity, The Star-News fully supports those individuals no matter what may come of U.N. inspections and the resulting diplomatic rigmarole. And we wish all our readers a happy and prosperous new year.