Triton takes no action on legal newspaper

Triton’s School Board took no action Monday night on an opinion from a school district-hired attorney on the status of the Dodge Center Messenger’s status as a legal newspaper.
The question of whether the Messenger qualifies as a legal newspaper goes back to last July when the Triton School Board named it as the district’s official newspaper to publish district legal notices.
The Dodge County Independent questioned that decision, maintaining that the monthly publication did not meet the state requirements for legal newspaper designation. It was recently announced that an attorney for the Triton Schools determined that the district is not publishing legal notices correctly and the Messenger does not meet the requirements of a legal newspaper.
In separate opinions provided to the district in the past several months, Ann Goering, a Twin Cities attorney, outlined multiple reasons why the monthly publication did not meet the qualifications. Her last opinion was dated March 6 and shared with officials of the City of Dodge Center and Dodge County.
In comments made Monday night during the Open Forum portion of the monthly board meeting, Messenger Publisher Terry Campbell took issue with comments made in editorials published in the Dodge County Independent.
The Messenger, he said, has been publishing twice a month for a year and a number of the things claimed by the DCI are “patently untrue,” he said.
“We are publishing twice a month,” he said. He also took issue with Goering’s comment in her decision that a Public Notice Request for Proposal with a deadline of Aug. 25, 2023, was not published by the Messenger until Oct. 3. The notice, Campbell said, was published Aug. 2.
They keep coming up with opinions from attorneys, Campbell said, when the paper has been certified as a legal paper by the state.
“For all this time we’ve been accused of not being a legal newspaper,” Campbell said, “and I say we are.”
Since Campbell made his comments during the Open Forum section of the meeting board members made no comments or asked any questions. Later in the meeting they tabled, without discussion, an agenda item to Discuss/Approve Legal Newspaper.