To the Editor:

I moved to Newtown last summer, and my family, including my school-age children, have fallen in love with our new hometown. One of my first acts as a Newtown homeowner was to subscribe to The Newtown Bee. I was dismayed to read in your editorial (“A Nibble Hurts as Much As A Bite,” June 4, Page 1) that the State of Connecticut might do away with printed legal notices in community newspapers.

As an owner of my own media company in Westchester County, N.Y., I can affirm that legal notices, while not a huge source of revenue, remain a meaningful buffer between profit and loss. Our state legislators need to understand that a local newspaper such as The Newtown Bee helps bring the community together. It gives us vital information about the town. Community journalists certainly aren’t in it for the money, as my own employees will attest. Losing legal notices may mean losing a reporter, and losing a reporter means that we may know less about our Selectboard and school board, and other important news in the community.

Brett Freeman

Horseshoe Ridge Road, Sandy Hook June 11, 2021

Editor’s note: Rep Mitch Bolinsky notified The Newtown Bee this week that HB 6641, to which the writer refers, “has been folded into the much broader, 88-page, HB-6448, as amended by LCO 10181, ‘An Act Concerning Access to Local Government, the Modernization of Local Government Operations, Regional Councils of Government and the Provision of Outdoor Dining,’” and that “References directing notice only to electronic means no longer exist.”