Warren County has filed a lawsuit against the Star-Ledger and the Daily Record to overturn a state law requiring legal notices to be posted in a print newspaper after the Star-Ledger announced its last printed newspaper will be on January 31, 2025.
The county claims it won’t be able to designate an “official newspaper” because none will meet the statutory requirement of having circulation in Warren County or being printed in New Jersey.
The lawsuit alleges that the Daily Record, a Gannett-owned paper, doesn’t qualify because its daily circulation is just 1,455 in a county with a population of 109,632.
“Warren County does not have a single, dedicated physical newspaper for publication, physical purchase, or circulation, which is available throughout the entire county,” said Warren County Commissioner James R. Kern III, the board director. “Instead, residents rely on regional publications for local news.”
Kern said that the Gannett-owned New Jersey Herald serves municipalities in northern Warren County, while some parts of Warren get The Express-Times and The Morning Call, both Pennsylvania-based newspapers.
“This reliance on neighboring regional papers underscores a gap in comprehensive, county-wide news coverage,” Kern stated.
The current state law requires county and municipal governments, boards, and authorities to publish notices, ordinances, and public bids in a newspaper.
In addition to the Star-Ledger, the closure of the Jersey Journal, the Trenton Times, and the South Jersey Times could create similar issues for other counties.
“Time is of the essence for state leaders to address New Jersey’s looming public notice crisis,” the New Jersey League of Municipalities, the New Jersey Association of Counties, and the New Jersey School Boards Association said in a statement. They are urging the legislature to take immediate action.
They suggest that the state amend the law to permit public notices “in a clear and transparent manner on a local government’s official website, or “in a database created and maintained by the State of New Jersey.” A third option would be a website or digital publication.
“These recommendations will streamline an antiquated process and replace it with a more contemporary and flexible method for publishing legal notices that may also save valuable taxpayer dollars,” the non-partisan coalition stated.
The groups added that “public officials have long decried that publishing these voluminous documents in newspapers is costly, time-consuming, and outdated.”
“Importantly note that long before NJ Advanced Media’s announcement, local officials found it difficult to comply with the notice requirements under the law as the newspaper industry has grown increasingly digitized and struggled to retain staff, resources, and publications,” they said.
Some municipalities have weekly newspapers that will still qualify as official newspapers.