Hello,
For one and all, the last few months have been anything but fun. Physically, emotionally, economically, at home and in business, we all have taken a figurative beating.
Readers know we weer not ale to publish our community newspapers, The Clarkston News, Oxford Leader, Lake Orion Review and The Citizen, the first couple of weeks during this nation-wide crisis. And it wasn’t because we didn’t have anything to report on. Nope. It was only because we could not cover costs of printing and postage.
The Governor’s lock down of the state closed many small businesses — the same small businesses who market their goods and services by purchasing advertising from us. They were closed, their businesses made no money. They didn’t advertise. Without the support of our local business communities it is virtually impossible to run our family-owned, small business.
Did you know last year we paid $539,000 in postage to mail our publications to the community? We are not complaining — we get great service from our local post offices and workers. Quite frankly, we would be worse off without them — but it is expensive. We didn’t print our regular papers so we could remain in the business of community publishing.
For the weeks you did not get your regular paper, we have added additional weeks to the end of your subscription. Also, to keep things moving, on some weeks we combined a number of our community newspapers into single editions. This was all done to get some news out while we try to navigate these waters never sailed before. Unprecedented times, indeed. We hope you enjoyed reading news from the other communities we serve.
Going forward, if this fluid situation gels up, in July we plan on returning back to our pre-COVID publishing schedule. In the Oxford and Lake Orion communities, this means printing and mailing out the Ad-Vertiser on Wednesdays and delivering The Oxford Leader and Lake Orion Review on Thursdays. In the Clarkston area folks will once again receive their Penny Stretchers in their mailboxes every Wednesday and The Clarkston News on Thursday.We thank you for your understanding and patience. Together we all can get through this.
Jim Sherman, Jr., publisher