EDITOR’S NOTE:

As you may have noticed, the Huntington Beach Independent has gone through a metamorphosis.

Both the newspaper and website have been redesigned, with several new interactive features we hope you, the reader, take full advantage of.

We would first like to announce that the Independent has expanded its coverage area to include Fountain Valley and Sunset Beach. One place this will be reflected is in our police files, which accompanies a map that divides the cities into different areas.

As you look through this issue, you will first notice our front page has several new features. Each week, in the upper left-hand corner, we will feature a weather drawing from a student in the community. Any teachers interested in submitting drawings should e-mail [email protected].

Our front page will also feature Web Threads. These are comments online visitors have left on stories. To submit comments, log on to www.hbindependent.com, register once, and leave your feedback on any story. Comments appear after an Independent editor has read and approved them.

Another interactive feature is our calendar section on Page A2, which has combined our previous Datebook and 72 Hours. If you have an event coming up you would like us to know about, enter it to the calendar section online, where you will also find more event listings.

Speaking of the web, we encourage you to visit our site for news updates throughout the week. If you think there may have been a story we missed, take a look at our Town Hall section on the web. There, readers can become community correspondents by sending us their own story submissions, which we will publish online.

Back to the print edition: In addition to a new look, we now have pages set aside specifically for education, religion, dining and surfing.

The religion page will feature Soul Food and a Church Community section, which will feature church listings and events. Our surfing page will feature Wet ’N’ Wild with Rockin’ Fig as well as a forecast and surf shot.

The Independent has also started a “Then & Now” history photo package, found this week on page A11. Each week our In the Pipeline columnist, Chris Epting, will submit historical and present-day photos of areas in and around the city.

Next week will be the debut for a new columnist, Cindy Arora. Her column, “Cindy, Incidentally” will explore all things relating to young professionals of Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley.

We are excited about these changes, and we look forward to your comments and questions as we continue our goal of being an integral part of this community.