Local newspapers important resource

Letter to the Editor

I am writing this letter as a caution to our town and village residents, as well as all residents that live in small rural communities all over Western New York. This topic affects everyone that lives in a small town or village community that is lucky enough to still have a local newspaper. I hear almost daily in my office from residents “I didn’t know that was happening” or “How come no one told us about this?”  Typically, the response back from me or our employees is “Well it was advertised in the local paper.” You can imagine that the end of the conversation is that they don’t get the local paper.

That is where my concerns lie. In today’s fast paced world, no one wants to take the time to find out what is happening in their community, unless it’s on social media and we all know how unreliable that information is. A subscription to the Akron Bugle, our local paper, costs $45 per year, which includes online access to the paper as well. That’s 52 weeks of keeping up with what is happening in your community. Most people today spend more than that in a week for their daily coffee at their favorite shop. It is a small price to pay for keeping yourself informed.

Under New York State law, a municipality can only use a paid subscription paper as their official paper to advertise legal notices of public hearings and meetings. So when a big commercial project or a big subdivision of new homes comes before the Zoning Board or the Planning Board or the Town Board, legal notices can only be placed in that official newspaper of the municipality. The towns and villages also advertise on their websites and social media pages, if they have them, but people have to be searching for that information to get it. Without our local newspaper reporting what’s happening every week in our community, our residents would have a very tough time knowing.

I was very concerned recently to learn that our “local” bank had pulled all their advertising from the paper. I’m not sure what that means for our bank, but I do know what it means to the local paper. If we lose our local paper, the next closest publication that we could advertise in would be a neighboring community that I’m sure almost no one in Akron- Newstead subscribes to. So when that big box store is built in your back yard or a 100 home subdivision is built next to your property and you didn’t know anything about it, maybe people will think twice about how important that $45 per year for a local paper subscription can be. We are all one community and supporting each other is vitally important. I simply ask you to take the steps necessary to keep yourself informed about what is happening in it, before we lose that ability to do so.

Dawn Izydorczak

Town Supervisor