At its December 1 meeting, the Brockport Village Board voted 3-2 to make the Tri-County Advertiser the official newspaper of the village. I introduced the motion to designate the TCA effective January 1. Trustees David Wagenhauser and Scott Hunsinger joined me in support of it.
Mayor Wexler voted against the measure without comment. Trustee Casteñeda opposed it, citing—among other objections—what she considers to be a slant in the TCA’s coverage of village politics, and her recollection that while seeking office last spring, Trustee Hunsinger and I advertised in another periodical.
While a discussion of election strategy would be extraordinarily boring, tedious and in my mind superfluous to the matter, I am happy to share the rationale I put forth to designate the TCA:
- Established in 1956, the TCA’s history of service to our community spans more than a half-century.
- Owner Sally Cottrell is a tireless supporter of Brockport.
- Through the years, the TCA and its staff have won industry awards too numerous to list here.
- More than 16,000 copies of the TCA are distributed weekly.
- Located on Main Street, the TCA is a Brockport-based business, literally around the corner from the village offices.
It’s worth noting that the idea of designating the TCA as Brockport’s official paper has been around at least since the village board’s organizational meeting last summer. The village went so far as to seek a legal opinion from general counsel on the matter. While the five of us the board didn’t agree that the TCA was deserving of the designation, we were diligent in the pursuit of it as an option, and I think that speaks well of each of us.
