Told you this could be a series.

Well, this won’t exactly be a letter, just a “cc” of my column to those we’ve elected – who appear to understand little to nothing about this antiquated piece of legislation – once I put the finishing touches on this latest masterpiece from the never-nominated, yet best-est in the west-est columnist who appreciates his loyal readers very much.

So, thanks for reading to understand why our local governments across the state are overpaying to publish “legals” in local publications.

Please allow me to state for the record that I don’t think the legal notices should need to be published at all. They have a limited audience needed to be reached. There are myriad ways to “post” said notices. And the most glaring reason this process needs to change: The law mandating how legals must be published was written in the middle of the last century.

I’ve been publishing for only a quarter of a century, and the industry has changed dramatically in that time. Imagine how much it has changed as this “law” is closer to an actual century old. Quite frankly, the “legals” could be published on a website (proof of this is every notice must also be published to a website operated by the Colorado Press Association), and local governments could run ads in multiple outlets, targeting the few who desire access to the “legals” and telling them where to find them, saving untold dollars each and every year.

Frankly, local governments should be allowed to publish “legals” anywhere they damned well please.

Worse, every update to the antiquated law has been written with language to protect and solidify the positions of those select “publications” to be the only source for publishing. And would you like to guess which publications those are? That’s right, the largest newspapers in your county. The ones the Colorado Press Association lobbies for at the state level.

So why is this personal? Let me tell you. Since I’ve been publishing The Business Times I have been called almost every year, asking if we could publish “legals,” so Mesa County could save some money on them. And until this year my answer was always a disappointed “no.” Why? Well, back then the only thing preventing my publishing – from what the county understood – was I didn’t publish weekly, and even if I did (which we started in January of 2025) we’d need to publish weekly for a year before qualifying.

Long story short, after a year of weekly publishing in 2025, we all thought we were finally eligible to publish “legals.” Boy, we couldn’t have been more wrong.

And now I also know why the big, local “dailies” went crazy when some rogue county trustees gave their foreclosure business to some smaller weekly publications. They had this old law in their hip pockets along with the lawmakers in Denver and updated things to get the business back.

Why? Public service? Distribution? Reach? Well, those might have been factors back in the day when state lawmakers passed this original law, but they matter little now with media available today.

Nope, it was for the simplest of reasons: Cash flow. An editorial in our now twice-a-week “daily” some 15 years ago admitted it had to lay off a few folks because of the revenue hit.

Here’s my question. Why the hell do local “dailies” think they have exclusive rights to this cash bonanza? Especially since they no longer have the “distribution’ and readership they had 75 years ago, since the turn of the LAST century or, heck, even 10 years ago. Heck, there are even counties in Colorado that no longer have these dinosaurs of print printing.

Which brings us to the latest iteration of this law, which needs to hit the dustbin or recycle pile next to those presses in greater need of an oil can than the Tinman on his way to Oz. Our wise lawmakers (that’s sarcasm) have addressed those unfortunate counties in our state that no longer have a daily or weekly pass-thru-payola-publication by amending the statute to allow those local governments to print “legals” in ANY weekly publication in the county. Even us lesser, little “free” ones. So, we’re finally good enough to get into a pay-to-play, quasi-government, money-making scheme.

Well, no. As they say in my industry, hold the presses. You see, if a paper like mine exists in a county that has a fossil of a publication, great-great-great-grandfathered into the scheme it’s: “No legals for you!” After all, that’s the law. Even though I’ve printed over a MILLION newspapers in my time serving the people of Grand Junction, the Grand Valley and Mesa County, I’m just not good enough.

And who determines that, you ask? Well, it should be those folks in local government to determine which paper is good enough and proper to publish in. Yet the all-knowing “elected betters” in Denver still use the only authority that hasn’t the slightest clue about service and getting information consistently to the people in a quality and timely manner: That’s right, the United States Postal Service. An entity that literally knows nothing about our state statute. I know. I’ve made a dozen calls trying to find out what I’d need to do to qualify and only got two responses. No one knew, or no one got back to me.

By the way, I’ve had “outgoing mail” in my mailbox at the office for three days now.

So that bid Mesa County put out to obtain the publishing of “legals?” Only two problems with it. Number one, only our local daily is qualified. Number two, there’s no way in publishing hell my (or any) paper can ever qualify. Heck, it might have been illegal for the county to even ask. Just how the insiders want it. To once again (my favorite) paraphrase Sonny Corleone, “There’s a lotta money in that ink on paper stuff from government, Pop.”

I guess it never occurred to anyone ever elected, the levels of conflicts of interest in paying millions over the decades to only one news outlet to publish notices only a select few even care about. Then again, those interested are all in cahoots with the same folks on both sides of this government “cottage industry.” Imagine providing a service so good, you need a government mandate to get and keep the business.

So yeah, it’s personal. Especially when things are rigged against the little guy. Even more when the little guy is me.

In truth and freedom.

Craig Hall is owner and publisher of The Business Times. Reach him at 424-5133 or publisher@thebusinesstimes.com.