It all started because state Sen. Nicholas Scutari, a Democrat from Union County and that body’s president, decided towns were being unfairly burdened having to pay the nominal fees required of public notices. So, he proposed a bill that would no longer require legal notices to be published in newspapers and online news agencies. And what do you know?
He even got the Republicans to sign onto it. They can’t agree on anything in the Legislature, but they found their common ground on screwing the remaining newspapers that, like The Observer, have somehow found a way to survive despite having all odds pitted against us.
Now, as of March 1, 2026, the same legal notices will only have to be published on municipal websites. And if you’ve ever seen some of those sites, all we can say is good luck ever finding the notices when it’s already nearly impossible to find anything of importance.
Voting to stick the knife even deeper into the newspaper business: Sens. Paul Sarlo, Brian Stack, Teresa Ruiz and Angela McKnight among others.
Also, Assembly Members Barbara McCann Stamato (whose photos have appeared in this newspaper often), Will Sampson, Gary Schaer (who sends us press releases) and Clinton Calabrese among others.
Only two members of the Assembly voted against the measure — Donald A. Guardian and Brian E. Rumpf, both Republicans — and not one in the Senate voted “no.”
Now, first, let’s address the so-called burdensome costs municipalities face with these announcements. Last week, the legal ads that ran in The Observer cost, respectively, $50, $7 and $54. Two court-related ads were more expensive but these do not affect municipalities. The week before ads were $30 for one and $14.50 for the other. And the week before that, they were $26, $21, $19.50 and $45.
None of these ads are breaking the bank and eliminating them is hardly going to allow any municipality to lower taxes or help keep them stable. For that to happen, they would have needed to take thousands of legal ads each week — and that is simply not the case. Now don’t take our word for this if you mustn’t — every legal ad may be found on our e-Newspaper at www.theobserver.com. See for yourself.
So what does all of this mean?
The Observer has survived for 138 years. We were among the first to go online in 1996. Yet in this calendar year alone, every printed newspaper run by NJ Advance Media — most notably The Star-Ledger — went to online only and The Jersey Journal completely ceased operation. It happened because the economics of print have changed for the worse exponentially since 1994 — the birth of the Web.
Yet some have found new ways to survive whether it’s via podcasts or any number of new avenues to generate revenue.
This needless bill may very well spell the death of many of the remaining printed newspapers, most of which are, like The Observer, weeklies.
And of course, just as he did when he refused to close the Keegan Landfill at first, Gov. Philip D. Murphy screwed us yet again by signing the bill into law.
As we have done in so many other ways, this newspaper will find ways to survive. But thanks to the likes of Scutari and Stamato and McKnight and Sampson, it won’t be made any easier. And when the day comes any of these fools need any kind of help from the printed press? And it will.
Perhaps they can look online somewhere because that help won’t be coming ever again from this printed newspaper.
Learn more about the writer ...
Kevin A. Canessa Jr. is the editor of and broadcaster at The Observer, an organization he has served since 2006. He is responsible for the editorial content of the newspaper and website, the production of the e-Newspaper, writing several stories per week (including the weekly editorial), conducting live broadcasts on social media channels such as YouTube, Facebook, and X, including a weekly recap of the news — and much more behind the scenes. Between 2006 and 2008, he introduced the newspaper to its first-ever blog — which included podcasts, audio and video. Originally from Jersey City, Kevin lived in Kearny until 2004, lived in Port St. Lucie. Florida, for four years until February 2016 and in March of that year, he moved back to Kearny to return to The Observer full time. Click Here to send Kevin an email.