Legal notices in the Lincoln Squirrel OK’d by state

An example of a legal notice in a newspaper.

Thanks to passage of a state law late last year, the town may now publish legal notices in the Lincoln Squirrel without also having to pay for publication in a print newspaper. 

State law requires that certain legal notices must be published in a print newspaper, including municipal notices of upcoming public hearings, requests for bids, etc., as well as property foreclosures, notices informing creditors of dissolving corporations, etc. This closes off an important source of potential revenue for digital-only news sites like the Lincoln Squirrel and does a disservice to residents who no longer get their information from hollowed-out legacy news sources.

However, Lincoln is now exempt from the print requirement. Go to the Legal Notices tab at the top of every Squirrel web page to see the notices for the last 12 months, including this one from the Lincoln Historical Commission. Note that this part of the website is always available to nonsubscribers as well as subscribers.

This all started with a citizen’s petition that was circulated by the Lincoln Squirrel and approved by residents at Town Meeting in March 2024. The Select Board subsequently sent a home rule petition to the state legislature, which approved House bill H.4664 (sponsored by Assistant House Minority Leader Alice Peisch and Carmine Gentile, and Assistant Senate Majority Leader Mike Barrett of Lexington) late last year. It was signed by Gov. Healey in January 2025 — an unexpectedly swift process. In the same session, similar bills for Arlington, Bedford, and Franklin were approved (learn more here). Many thanks to our state legislators, town officials and residents for their support!

Meanwhile, the Squirrel and other members of the Eastern Mass. News Alliance are still pushing for a statewide law change so other towns don’t have to go through the same home-rule petition process. It’s not easy because the newspaper industry is understandably fighting to preserve one of their last steady sources of revenue, but it’s probably only a matter of time in a rapidly evolving media environment.