“It’s the Union’s turn,” said Cliff Ralston, as he encouraged Allen County commissioners to make the Humboldt Union the county’s official newspaper for 2014.
Two years ago the Union won the right to publish county legal publications, on the rationale the contract should alternate between the Union and the Iola Register. The decision was then made by commissioners Dick Works and Rob Francis, with Gary McIntosh opposed.
Last year, with commissioners Tom Williams and Jim Talkington on board in place of Francis and McIntosh, the Register was selected.
A decision was put off when Works, after listening to a presentation by Register Publisher Susan Lynn, said he wanted to digest numbers that she unveiled.
Lynn, in summation, said she thought commissioners should “consider the value you get for tax dollars” spent, and that commissioners should want legal publications to be seen by as many people as possible. “I think that would be an overriding concern.”
She had pointed out that the Register’s subscription rolls were about three times greater than the Union’s, at about 2,700, and reached all four corners of the county. The Register also has a website that provides free viewing of legal publications, Lynn said. The Union lacks a web presence. Online views to the Register average about 6,000 a month, Lynn said.
She said the Register has 1,400 subscribers in Iola, while the Union has a handful, which would seem to exclude most Iolans from exposure to county legal publications. The Register also has 242 subscribers in Humboldt, 203 in Moran and 177 in Elm and Deer Creek townships, giving it a strong presence throughout the county.
Ralston, in brief comments, had said that legal publications in the Union were available on the Kansas Press Association website, as are all published by Kansas newspapers.
Lynn also said the Register’s Facebook page is popular, noting that a story about a large cat killing a calf, published Saturday and put on the Facebook page Monday afternoon, had had 21,000 hits in less than 24 hours.
The Register has been the official county newspaper for Allen County ever since the county began requiring such a relationship. It is the only daily newspaper in the county.
When the two newspapers presented their charges for legal publications two years ago, there was little difference in price. The business amounts to about $12,000 a year.
AT THE TOP of the meeting Talkington was elected chairman for 2014, taking the gavel from Works.
Williams nominated Talkington after a coin flip decided whether he or Talkington would do the honors.
Commissioners, about as quickly as they’ve been known to act, voted unanimously to give 3 percent across-the-board raises to employees, full and part time, as well as elected officials.
Williams pointed out the raise effectively was 2 percent, since Kansas Public Employees Retirement System (KPERS) withdrawal from paychecks increased from 4 to 5 percent this year.
