Dear Alert Reader,

First of all, thank you for reading. Whether you’ve just subscribed or have stuck with this newsletter since the hoary print issues of 2011, I appreciate your interest in these scribblings and the Village of Elberta. What a wacky place.

The Elberta Alert is now hosted by Ghost, an open-source platform that has fewer Nazis than Substack and also doesn’t take a percentage cut of subscription fees. It is customizable like the old Wordpress site, but it’s much less fiddly. The archives of the old elbertaalert.com and the Substack newsletter are all here now, and they look waaaayyyy better, thanks to the coding and graphic design prowess (and patience and care) of Paula Friedrich. Take a look around! If there’s something we can do to make navigation easier, let me know.

This latest iteration of the Alert is a members-only website and newsletter, and that means you need an account. Good news! If you’re reading this email, you already have an account.

You’ll always be able to see the latest council meeting reports for free (that’s the Alert guarantee!). But there’s no more free ride to see all the posts and pages and search the archive. The base subscription rate is now $3 per month or $25 per year (that’s a discount, if like me you are not a mathemagician). If you were already a paid subscriber on Substack, you don’t have to do anything; you’ll keep seeing everything, and you’ll get a notification when your subscription is close to ending. You might want to change your subscription to the new rate, if it’s lower!

If the subscription fee is too rich for your blood, I understand. Maybe you can get a paid subscriber to print out the posts for you, read them to you, or let you look at their phone. If you’re an organic human being and care about Elberta, we’re on the same team.

In this new era you’ll see work by other writers besides me, original illustrations and cartoons, more reporting on meetings, in-depth investigations, and some printed items, because we are living in a material world, so let’s get physical.

Got a topic you’d like to see covered? Want to write or draw for the Alert and be paid money? Having a technical issue? Send me an email: emilyvotruba@yahoo.com

The competition for your attention is stiff, and the Elberta Alert will strive to win it.

May all be peachy with you.

Emily Kay Votruba, Re-Founding Editor, The Elberta Alert