A new newspaper for I.B.

A new community newspaper, the IB Connection, will be published in Imperial Beach, filling a void left when the IB Local News stopped publishing late last year.

The IB Connection, which plans for its first issue to come out this month, overlaps with the defunct IB Local News in certain ways but is an entirely new entity, according to publisher Brad Weber.

"We're not a paper that's publishing controversial subjects like [the IB Local News did],” Weber said. The IB Local News was involved in conflicts with a semi-local rival paper known as the Imperial Beach and South County Eagle & Times, as well as with the city council and some business interests.

"Our motto is community, kids, and causes," Weber said of his new monthly periodical. "We want to celebrate the great life in I.B. We're not going to be doing investigative articles on the city council…. We don't want to be associated with controversial subjects in town."

As part of establishing the IB Connection, Weber said he held discussions with Ed Kravitz, former publisher of the IB Local News. As a result, the IB Connection will have "some of the same staff," Weber said, and will be taking up some of the defunct paper's advertisement debts.

"There are some advertisers that had paid for ads and they didn't get them," Weber said, saying the IB Connection will run the ads as "a goodwill gesture. We want to right any wrongs."

Weber has a background in publishing and direct-mail advertising. He is associate publisher of the Mid City Newspaper Group, which publishes other local papers in San Diego, including the Adams Avenue News and North Park News.

The IB Connection will be mailed to households, free of charge. Which households receive the paper will be based on "certain demographics" that are "constantly evolving," Weber said, and the paper will start with a print run between 3000 and 5000 copies.

Imperial Beach has a population of about 27,000 with less than 10,000 households, according to imperialbeach.areaconnect.com.

Weber said though it's more expensive, "it's much more popular to put them in people's mailboxes."

Weber said he has noticed that younger people enjoy the novelty of being in an actual printed paper as opposed to the internet.

"We are getting feedback from the younger generation that they really like it, including people in their 20s and 30s," he said. "They say, ‘Wow, something in print!'"

Disclosure: The author had articles published in the I.B. Local News.

(corrected 3/14, 2 p.m.)