If you are looking for a little local flair and "color" in Los Banos you might consider obtaining a subscription to Tony Dutra's "THE PAPER". This weekly circular is released every Wednesday and is usually chock full of local stories, opinions, and local-centric opinions.

The Paper also runs a lot of human interest centered things and encourages letters to the editor and publishes other such things as Business license statements (fictitious business name statements or DBA's Doing Business As), legal and public notices, obituaries, and other such items

Tony Dutra, the publisher of THE PAPER, seems to enjoy photos and you will find that most every story he puts to newsprint has a photograph of one or more people to go along with the text.

A community newspaper for Los Banos California, THE PAPER also features a community events calendar that is supplied by the staff of Our Los Banos .com and appears in the OurLosBanos.com Community Corner. Space permitting, the OLB corner also features a missive written by the OLB staff. Usually this takes the form of a minor commentary on our community designed to spur people into thinking about how we can all come together to make a better community.

THE PAPER just recently opened their own website. Click here to go to it!

You may pick up single copies of THE PAPER up at THE PAPER headquarters (830 "I" street) or at Fantasia Records & Tapes (921 Sixth Street 209-826-0197) or at Los Banos Drugs. You may also subscribe to the paper by simply contacting TFD Enterprises at 209-827-0364

"The Paper's" headquarters is at 830 I street here in Los Banos.

You can reach them using the telephone or E-mail
Phone Number: 209-827-0364
E-mail: tfdent@sbcglobal.com

The following columns have been written by OurLosBanos.com for THE PAPER.

If you have something you would like to see listed in the OurLosBanos Community Corner or on our Calendar of Events, please contact us.

Published Wed November 16, 2006

A Time to Reflect & A Time For Family
The community events calendar is pretty uncluttered this week - and
this is as it should be. This week, of course, is Thanksgiving and our focus
should be on family and close friends rather than the external events that
take up so much of our lives during the rest of the year.

This community has just completed a long and somewhat trying election
process where feelings ran high and issues were debated intensely. It
is now time to decompress, enjoy our families, and renew our spirits for
the upcoming Christmas season. We are pleased to note that on the
OurLosBanos.com forums the spirit of Christmas in this community has
already begun. We think you will fi nd the following note which was posted to
the forums on November 9th to be very uplifting. Space precludes us from
reprinting the entire post but we encourage you to read the rest of it on the
OurLosBanos.com forums.

----------------- quote

A Decorating Contest Posted By 2 Anonymous Christians:
Christmas is a magical time of year and it is a time that was set aside for us
to remember the birth of Jesus Christ. It is a time for refl ection but it is also
a time for families to come together and have some fun. Fun in decorating
and fun in viewing all the magical sights and special events of the Christmas
Season.

As kids we remember the great joy of driving around in our parent’s cars
and viewing the lights. We want to see that happen for the kids in Los
Banos in a really big way!

We are two Christians who would really like our home-town to get
more into the Christmas spirit this year. So we are throwing a city-wide
Christmas decorating contest!

On the weekend of December 16 and 17 the two of us will drive
around Los Banos on both nights between 5 and 10 PM. We will note the
addresses of each place we have enjoyed and judge it on our own scale.
We will choose the 25 best places that we see and mail out gift cards that
can be used at Local Los Banos businesses. [The poster detailed over
$600 worth of prizes that they will be giving away!]

To participate all you have to do is decorate your front yard or the
exterior of your house. Anyone may nominate any home in Los Banos
by posting to the [OurLosBanos.com] forum. You can nominate your own
place or you can nominate a place you have seen decorated nicely.
We would like the whole town to go out driving on Dec. 16 and 17
looking at Christmas lights. Make it a family night and pack up some
thermoses of hot chocolate and cookies - take the kids and go see what
everyone has put up!

------------------------------ end of quote

After Thanksgiving, maybe you too will consider how you can make a
difference in our community. Every kindness however small makes this city a better
place to live and work. We look forward to hearing about your Christmas events and
seeing even more of the Los Banos Community spirit during the 2006- Christmas season.

Published Wed Oct. 11, 2006
Paper Not Published

[Note: THE PAPER was not published on this date due to technical problems. The calendar was full so we had very little space for extra words anyway.]

Check our OurLosBanos.com for additional activities and MORE information / details. Please submit your calendar events to Events@OurLosBanos.com

Published Wed Oct. 4, 2006
Make A Day of It
There is a ton of stuff happening this week, particularly this Saturday. Of particular note are the annual Downtown Street Fair and the Scholastic Clay Target Fund Raising Game Day at the Sportsmen’s Club. I encourage all of our readers to make a day out of supporting our community by going and having fun at BOTH of these events. I am particularly excited about the trapshooting fundraiser which will feature a raffle where among other things a shotgun donated by Mr. Marx will be given away, A Junior Olympic gold medalist and a nationally known skeet shooting coach will be present at the event. Adults and children may also participate in hands on shooting clinics. Come support our young sportsmen.

Published Sept. 27, 2006
Keeping a Small Town “Feel” in a Growing Community

As Los Banos continues to grow, I regularly hear people worry that the influx of new residents is going to “ruin our small town atmosphere”. I contend that we need not lose anything. You see, the “small town” feeling we all cherish can be retained because it’s the mindset of the people that makes the difference... NOT the last census count.

I truly believe that our community can nurture a little piece of “Norman Rockwell”. It’s simply about individuals making little differences - one at a time. If every neighborhood participates, we can preserve the “small town” feeling that we’re all so concerned about losing.

Cultivate an oasis of friendliness in your neighborhood and watch it spread! Let the small stuff go. Take a deep breath the next time that darn dog poops on your lawn - yet again. Do ‘helpful little things’. Bring dinner over to the family who is having a hard time financially. Mow the lawn for the older couple down the block. Wave a little. Smile. Share some of those apples that grow in your back-yard with your neighbors “just because”. Plant the seeds of kindness with new folks!

Next time a new neighbor moves in, bring over a plate of cookies and give them a warm welcome. They are a new part of your “small town”. It will be entertaining to watch their initial suspicion turn into a love for Los Banos and its people. “Small town” starts with small acts.

Published Wed September 20, 2006
WHAT IS COMMUNITY?

Last week we introduced the ‘OurLosBanos.com Community Corner’ by explaining that I would be doing a weekly “community column”. The bulk of this section of the paper is the ‘community events calendar’ where readers can find out what is happening this week in Los Banos.

But what IS community? Since I only have enough space for a half page this week, I think that I will endeavor to convey to you what I mean by the concept of “community” With election signs suddenly starting to appear all around this town, I believe that we need to start actively thinking about the concept of community now as we begin to be bombarded with pre-election rhetoric and campaign promises.

As I use the term, “building community” means the melding together of a diverse group of people, businesses and cultural groups for the betterment of Los Banos. “Community” also encompasses the idea of building a POSITIVE and, dare I say it, FRIENDLY atmosphere amongst the citizens with the goal of working toward a greater public good through individual participation of people and businesses at all levels. To put it simply, “doin’ the best ya can where yer at"for your neighbors, your town, and ultimately for yourself.

Your Turn! If you are doing something for the community let us know! To request inclusion on the community calendar Send E-Mail to: events @ OurLosBanos.com

Published Wed September 13, 2006
India Ink Meets Screen Pixels
A Lighthearted Introduction Of The Paper’s Newest Writer

I once promised myself that I would not start anything I ever wrote with the
hackneyed phrase “There I was, minding my own business....”. Sadly those
old trite words fit pretty well right about now. So... with not a little chagrin let
me tell you...

There I was, minding my own business, when all of a sudden I found myself a
contributor to the local community newspaper! I am still a little uncertain about
how this all transpired... something of a conversational whirlwind enveloped
me and one thing led to another and well, now you are reading my words
printed in ink instead of just in pixels on a computer screen.

You see, late last week I made my way to “The Paper’s” headquarters, on
830 “I” street here in Los Banos. The little white building with blue accents (repainted in October 2006 to tan with brown accents)
serves as the headquarters for TFD enterprises, a combination of newspaper
publisher, towing shop, impound yard, trophy maker, printer, and bar /
entertainment establishment. I had my 50 cents in hand and entered the
office... All I wanted was to get a copy of The Paper to see if they printed a
story about my new website OurLosBanos.com. I was hoping against hope
that The Paper was not going to spike the story about the website like another
newspaper had earlier in the week.

Walking through that door took me to a very unanticipated place.
I entered the office and patiently waited for the lady who was on the phone
to finish her call when I heard a disembodied voice echoing from around the
corner asking if it could help me. I poked my head around the corner and met
one of the most colorful people I have yet to encounter in Los Banos. Tony
Dutra, the owner of this odd assortment of businesses, and I spent most of
the rest of the hour talking about topics ranging from firearms to kitty cats.
However, we spent the most our time discussing Los Banos and what turns
out to be a common love for this community.

Old & New Combine Forces
Tony and I come from completely different backgrounds that could not be
more different. I am born and bred American and Tony is a legal immigrant
who made his way to the USA during the decade previous to my birth. Tony’s
main jobs included the heavy and somewhat dangerous and laborious manual
work of a tow truck driver, while as a computer geek I spent my time in heavily
air conditioned computer rooms. Tony has been in Los Banos since the 1950’s
and me? Well I just arrived here about 3 years ago. More importantly however
Tony comes from a print media background, and since 1997 I have done
almost everything online.

As our discussion progressed and got serious we learned of a common goal,
one that Tony has been working on for over a decade with his newspaper
and one that I have been trying to do for three weeks with my website. That
common goal is to build community here in Los Banos. Tony provides news
and colorful stories that make Los Banos come alive in his weekly paper and
on my website I provide static general information about the city and more
importantly a place for the community to come and share their own viewpoints
and ideas on our web forums.

A more complimentary match could not have been designed. Serendipity,
fate, an act of God, or whatever you may call it seems to have brought these
two businesses into contact with each other. Tony and I both hope that the
community as a whole will benefit from our loose alliance and that through our
combined efforts members of the community can come together and keep the
close knit local feel that we hold so dear despite the inexorable growth that
Los Banos will experience in coming years.

To that end I will be writing a weekly column for The Paper and Tony will be
helping to get the word out to the City of Los Banos about OurLosBanos.com
we hope that you will log on and join the forums and discuss what you read in
The Paper as well as all of the other issues that make our town what it is.

While neither of us has the “happy talent for composition and the remarkable
felicity of expression” that Thomas Jefferson had, we do share a love for this
city and hope our readers will become involved in making this a better place
through your individual contributions (large and small) to our ‘little town’.