Editor's Note

It's Best of Tucson® Time!

On Sunday night, we launched the Best of Tucson® ballot for 2014, kicking off the process that leads up to our annual feast of lists and rankings on Oct. 2. Last year, I had just started as editor, so I didn't mess with the ballot or the process much, but now that I've spent my first year in this chair, we're trying a few new things.

First, we added a bunch of new categories and deleted a few that didn't seem to connect with voters last year. Hopefully you like the new ones and aren't too upset by the ones we dumped. It's a bit of a challenge to guess what people are going to embrace voting-wise, but we tried to include the categories readers have suggested in the last year, so if you're one of the people who mentioned Best Pet Groomer, this is your lucky year.

Also, we're doing voting for Best of Tucson® a little differently this year. The process will be in two parts. First, you'll vote like you always have, filling in the blanks in various categories. That part of the process runs from now until Wednesday, April 30.

Part two, running from May 15 to June 30, is new. We're going to take the top vote-getters in each category and allow you to vote on those, with those results determining the Best of Tucson® winners for 2014. The idea is that we might get better results, since you might have a somewhat obscure choice for Best Pizza (for example) that doesn't get on the radar at the end of the first round, but your second favorite could make the second round. We're hoping this way of doing things gets us winners that reflect more of a consensus.

Then again, it might not work and we'll have to go back to the drawing board next year. You never know. Feels good to try something new, at least.

Thanks in advance for voting. I personally enjoy seeing how Best of Tucson® works out and it couldn't happen without our readers.