VALLEJO – The Vallejo Sun continued to grow in our third full year of operations, adding new contributors, launching new products, upgrading our existing products, forging new partnerships and formalizing our processes.  Meanwhile, we’ve continued our mission of providing high-quality, accurate, and timely content, helping to keep the Vallejo and Benicia communities informed.

This year, we emphasized the crucial role that journalism plays in a healthy democracy. We worked to be more transparent about our process and ethics, to listen to feedback from our readers, and increase our engagement with the community. 

The following annual report outlines our production, accomplishments and new ventures and illustrates our commitment to transparency.

Welcoming new voices

The Vallejo Sun published a total of 242 total articles from 12 contributors in 2024, demonstrating the increasing diversity of our contributors. Here’s a little bit about our newest writers:

Natalie Hanson is an award-winning Bay Area-based journalist who reports on homelessness, education and criminal justice issues. She has written for Courthouse News, Richmondside, ChicoSol News, and more.

Isidra Mencos, Ph.D. is the author of Promenade of Desire — A Barcelona Memoir. Her work has been published in WIRED, Chicago Quarterly Review and more. She reports on Vallejo's businesses and culture.

Gretchen Smail is a journalist from the San Francisco Bay Area with a background in entertainment writing and a current focus on health and science reporting.

Other Vallejo Sun contributors like Zack Haber and Holly McDede expanded their roles, taking on new beats and investigations.

Our reach is growing. We had an average of 84,000 page views per month in 2024, up from 52,000 in 2023.

Our audience indicated that our reporting is having an impact on their lives. In our December audience survey, 69% of respondents said that as a result of reading the Vallejo Sun they shared an article with a friend, 57% said they voted in a local election, 43% said they visited a community business, 36% said they attended an event and 33% said they contributed money to a cause, event or business.

Reporting on Vallejo police

We continued our award-winning coverage of the Vallejo Police Department in 2024, reporting in-depth news about the challenges facing effective law enforcement in Vallejo.

In January, the release of the Netflix docuseries “American Nightmare” put new eyes on the history of the Vallejo Police Department by telling the story of Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn, who were victims of a horrific robbery and kidnapping but accused by Vallejo police of perpetuating a hoax. To complement the Netflix series, we co-published this story with the San Francisco Chronicle recapping the story of the lead detective in the case, Vallejo police Detective Mat Mustard.

Also in January, an attorney for a fired Vallejo police officer tried to block our publication from reporting on the officer's disciplinary history. With the help of the First Amendment Coalition, we fought back against this attempt at prior restraint and published our story anyway.

We reported how police use of force had escalated in 2023, leading to a rise in liability claims against the city, which led the mayor to ask the police chief to respond to our findings during a City Council meeting.

Our coverage of attempts by the state Department of Justice to impose a reform program on the Vallejo Police Department was cited in the case when the Justice Department demanded the judge overseeing it recuse himself after he shared our article on LinkedIn. The judge interacted with contractors for the Vallejo Police Department and others who made negative comments about the Justice Department's reform efforts. The Justice Department later withdrew the case and entered a separate settlement outside of the courts.

We were instrumental in bringing the Vallejo Police Department into compliance with state law regarding its use of military equipment. The police had done nothing to comply with the law, which took effect in 2021, until we asked about it.

Finally, we were first to report a bizarre story where a Vallejo police lieutenant searched a Vallejo family’s home and had their car seized at gunpoint while searching for a pair of inscribed golden handcuffs but did not attempt to arrest the person accused of taking the handcuffs or charge him with a crime.

Investigating repeat allegations against a Benicia teacher

Our reporting has had a significant impact in Benicia this year, where we uncovered disturbing allegations about an elementary school teacher. Back in March we broke news that teacher Matthew Shelton had been charged with sexual misconduct with students.

Most disturbingly, it was his second arrest for similar crimes after he was charged and acquitted in connection with a previous employer.  The district had been quiet about the arrest until our story was published, and only made a statement about it afterwards.

Reporter Holly McDede, who reports on sexual misconduct in schools and had previously written for the Vallejo Sun, took on the story for us and produced an investigative series reporting how multiple new victims came forward and the school principal was placed on leave while her handling of the situation was investigated.

But when Holly sought records in the case both from Benicia and the teacher's previous employer in Napa, the teacher sued to keep the records secret. Holly, with support from the Investigative Reporting Program at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, teamed up with the First Amendment Coalition to fight back and compel the districts to release the records and prevailed.

The records she obtained showed how the state Commission on Teacher Credentialing allowed him to regain his teaching license to be hired again as a teacher in Benicia.

Alleged misconduct by cemetery owners

Another investigative series we continued this year uncovered allegations of severe maintenance, neglect and financial irregularities at cemeteries operated by Vallejo businessman Buck Kamphausen. Our stories were introduced as evidence in court by the state Department of Justice, which is trying to seize $10 million from the cemeteries.

Reporting on what makes Vallejo special

We launched a new column this year called the Vallejo Vignettes featuring reader-submitted stories about something quirky, fun or inspiring, either a recent anecdote or something that happened a long time ago.

The column has helped to emphasize the good stuff that happens in Vallejo and the amazing community. 

Entries can be submitted to vallejovignettes@vallejosun.com. 

Advancing democracy

As part of our coverage of the 2024 election, we interviewed 20 candidates running for local office. This was a huge effort that five reporters worked on for months.

• Ryan Geller interviewed every candidate running for city government in Vallejo starting in July.
• Holly McDede, who helped us break stories about the arrest of a Benicia teacher earlier this year, interviewed candidates for the school board.
• Isidra Mencos interviewed candidates running for Benicia city government and managed all the Spanish translations.
• Gretchen Zimmermann interviewed the local candidates running for the state legislature while keeping up on event announcements for candidate forums and other campaign events.
• Scott Morris coordinated and edited every story and conducted further candidate interviews in Benicia.

We typically cover elections in three stages in order to be fair to all candidates and provide voters with the best information:

• After ballots are finalized, which happens about three months ahead of an election, we publish a story about who is running and briefly describe what we know about them.
• We then reach out to all the candidates running for office and either request a live interview or provide a questionnaire. Throughout the campaign, we also cover forums and debates to elaborate on the distinctions between the candidates.
• On Election Day, we report results as they come in. 

This year, we solicited questions from readers and received 122 responses. We took a look at the most frequently asked questions so we could ask the candidates questions about their plans for the area's most pressing issues, like public safety, economic development and homelessness.

Reaching out to diverse communities

We launched a new Spanish language section this year to help keep Vallejo’s diverse community informed as 20% of Vallejo residents speak Spanish at home. Our first story to be translated was our feature on Vallejo’s “Little Mexico” and later we translated all our election coverage into Spanish.

Upgrading our event listings

We worked with Vallejo Arts & Entertainment to launch a new platform for listing Vallejo events. Not only can you find local Vallejo events, but you can expand the area of your search and discover events in the surrounding community as well.

And if you have an event to promote, you can even add it right on our site and we'll review and approve it.

Being transparent about our policies and ethics

We worked to be more transparent about our policies and ethical practices by publishing our editorial policies, which govern how we handle things like anonymous sources, conflicts of interest and advertising, an FAQ with further information explaining our practices, and a donor transparency section which discloses all contributions greater than $5,000.

We also recruited a new advisory board of industry leaders who will help guide our publication into the future.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra is the host of The Bay podcast at KQED. Previously, she served as the show's producer, where her work included a three-part series on policing in Vallejo which won a a Society of Professional Journalists award.

Lance Knobel is co-founder of Berkeleyside and CEO of Cityside. He brings nearly 40 years of journalism experience, including editor-in-chief roles at Management Today and World Link. He is also the founder of Berkeleyside's Uncharted Festival of Ideas.

T. Christian Miller, a reporter for ProPublica, has covered four wars, a presidential campaign, and reported from over two dozen countries. His accolades include two Pulitzer Prizes and three Emmy Awards for investigative reporting featured on PBS Frontline.

Mallory Somera is a podcast producer and audio journalist born and raised in Vallejo. She most recently produced and wrote breaking news for KCBS Radio's 24/7 news coverage and special segments before launching the award-winning station's digital and podcasting department. She has over 14 years of experience in radio and 25+ years in theater production.

Matt Thompson is the editor of Headway at the New York Times, a new journalism initiative that explores the world’s challenges through the lens of progress. He was previously editor in chief at Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting and executive editor of The Atlantic. He is a resident of Vallejo.

The Vallejo Sun continues to be recognized by our peers

Here's some of the awards we've won this year:

• A Society of Professional Journalists Northern California award for best community coverage, awarded to city reporter Ryan Geller for the breadth of his stories on taxes, education and homelessness.
• Three California News Publisher Association awards: First place in healthcare coverage for "Man died in Kaiser Vallejo waiting room eight hours after seeking treatment for chest pain," third place in homelessness reporting for Ryan Geller's coverage of homelessness and third place in in-depth coverage for a series of stories on Vallejo police pursuits.
• We were a finalist for the Next Challenge Future of Local Journalism award.