The Colfax Messenger is now the official newspaper for Dunn County
By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — The Colfax Messenger is now the official newspaper of record for Dunn County for publishing all required legal notices.
The Dunn County Board approved the ordinance naming the Messenger as the official county newspaper at the November 12 meeting.
The ordinance was approved unanimously and with no discussion.
The approval came as a second reading of the ordinance, which was introduced at the October 16 meeting.
According to the ordinance, “It is in the best interest of Dunn County to designate a newspaper of record. Any newspaper designated by the Board of Supervisors must meet the minimum qualifications enumerated in Wisconsin. Stat. 985.03.”
The ordinance also notes that the designation “shall remain in effect until changed by the County Board of Supervisors.”
The Dunn County News was designated as the county’s official newspaper in 1982 and continued in that capacity for 42 years until the county board approved the ordinance naming the Colfax Messenger on November 12.
Before the county board named the Dunn County News as the official newspaper, Dunn County used to alternate every other month between the Colfax Messenger and the Dunn County News for publishing county board minutes and other notices.
At that time, the county’s monthly publication of the county board minutes would make up an entire section of the newspaper and would include the full text of the resolutions and ordinances approved by the county board as well as all of the minutes from the county board’s committee meetings.
Prior to his death in 2018, Lyle Christianson, former owner and publisher of the Colfax Messenger, had talked about the situation when the Messenger was no longer publishing notices for the county.
Before the ordinance that was approved in 1982 naming the Dunn County News as the official newspaper, the Messenger had regularly been receiving notices to publish. But then one day, the notices from Dunn County suddenly stopped, Christianson had said.
When he inquired why the Colfax Messenger was no longer receiving any of the county’s notices to publish, he was informed that the county board had decided to approve the Dunn County News as the exclusive publication for county notices.
The abrupt change had occurred without any kind of notification to the Messenger in advance, Christianson had said.
A few years back, after the Dunn County News closed its office in Menomonie, the paperwork for name changes in Dunn County Circuit Court started including the Colfax Messenger as an option for people who wanted to legally change their names.
Notices for name changes must be published in a newspaper three times, which is known as a Class 3 notice, prior to the court hearing for a name change.
