Graham council leaves legal advertising decision to administrators

Graham’s city council stepped back from a proposal to move the city’s legal advertising from The Alamance News to The Burlington Times-News, leaving the decision to administrators instead of turning it into a formal council fight. The issue came up around the council’s regular meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 12, at City Hall, 201 South Main Street, where the discussion centered on where residents would see the city’s official notices.

Those notices are not filler. Under North Carolina law, legal advertising has to run in a newspaper with general circulation to actual paid subscribers that has been regularly and continuously issued in the county for at least 25 of the prior 26 weeks. Public notices typically cover hearings, bids, rezoning requests, annexations, budgets, property taxes, ordinances, foreclosures and elections, which makes them one of the main ways people learn what local government is doing before a decision is final. The North Carolina Press Association says those notices also serve public access, archiving and independent verification.

The choice had been pushed into the open in April, when mayor pro tem Ricky Hall asked that the May 12 agenda include a discussion about moving Graham’s legal notices from The Alamance News to the Burlington paper. Before the meeting, The Alamance News publisher Tom Boney, Jr. sent council members a nine-page letter urging them to keep the notices where they were. The newspaper also pointed to circulation figures showing 3,737 paid copies for The Alamance News versus 1,429 for The Burlington Times-News, along with ad rates it said are typically about 30% lower.

By leaving the matter to administrators, the council avoided a public vote that could have turned a routine notice-placement decision into a broader political dispute over media reach and influence. But the question still matters for Alamance County residents in Graham, Burlington and beyond: where an official notice appears can shape how easily people find information about hearings, taxes, ordinances and other actions that affect daily life.

In small-city government, legal advertising can look like paperwork. In practice, it is the public record’s front door, and Graham’s decision kept that door in the hands of staff rather than elected officials.