I wanted to wait until I was a little less upset about this incident before I put pen to paper — or should I say fingers to keyboard.

As publisher of the Redmond Reporter, every now and then I go out on sales calls with my advertising sales representatives in order to get a feel for the pulse of the business community.

However, a couple of weeks ago, I went on a call that was the most bizarre experience I’d ever had in all my years of sales.

We had an appointment to visit a local business and discuss its interest in advertising on our Web site. Little did I know that this was just a ruse for them to get a chance to express their unhappiness with us and our lack of community support.

The moment we stepped into this establishment, one of the owners was there to meet us and start a tirade on what a terrible paper we were. He described us as “never covering local business, having our own agenda, which did not support the community, never writing a word about his new business even though they had asked us over and over, never including their free live entertainment in our calendar section . . .” And on … and on.

It was clear he had been waiting a really long time to get this all off his chest, so I let him finish and then said I was absolutely certain that we had written at least one story on his business and that I had in fact seen his live entertainment listed in our calendar but I would go back to the office and check into it.

Needless to say, we did not discuss Web advertising that day.

You can say whatever you like about our paper, but I know how passionate my staff is about covering our community and I take great umbrage with anyone who says differently.

Whether it’s Mary Stevens Decker, our senior writer, covering changes at Lake Washington School District, a community meeting or the grand opening of a new business in Redmond.

Maybe it’s Tim Watanabe, our sports guru, going to the Tacoma Dome to cover the Mustangs’ state-tournament run or covering the Bear Creek Grizzlies game against Quilcene.

Then there is Katherine Ganter, our talented photographer, rushing from shooting a ribbon-cutting to a basketball game, then a band performance — all in Redmond, within the same day.

What about last Saturday night when we had my editor Bill Christianson, Katherine and myself supporting the Redmond Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Gala and Auction?

From our sales team to our delivery team, every single person on my small, dedicated staff works very hard to produce the best possible local paper we can, delivered free to you. The response from both our readers and advertisers has almost always been very positive.

I did a little “investigative reporting” of my own, when I returned to the office after this very disturbing visit.

Low and behold, I found that we had in fact published a story about this business prior to their opening, they were also included in a front page story about live entertainment in Redmond and we did a story about one of the bands that performed there.

We have also run their free live events at least once per week in our calendar section and still do. I don’t hold grudges.

You can say what you will, but there is one thing for sure: We’ve got Redmond covered.

Andrea Southern is the publisher of the Redmond Reporter. She can be reached at asouthern@redmond-reporter.com.