The judge will hear arguments in Warren County’s lawsuit against the Star-Ledger, Daily Record

A Supreme Court judge will hear oral arguments Jan. 6 in Warren County’s challenge to a state law requiring the publication of legal notices in newspapers at taxpayer expense, a pressing issue following an announcement that the Star-Ledger and other New Jersey newspapers this will be closed at the end of January.

The county maintains that it cannot designate an “official newspaper” because none meet the legal requirement to be distributed in Warren County or printed in New Jersey.

The New Jersey Association of Counties filed an amicus brief saying that “the cessation of publication by the Star-Ledger and other newspapers has created a narrow window of opportunity for counties to decide how to proceed with designations official newspapers should proceed.”

John Donnadio, the association’s executive director, said in his court filing: “It should surprise no one, including the Supreme Court, that technology has evolved physically at a pace that was completely unexpected by the Appellate Division at the time.” “For the most part, newspapers today, for better or worse, are a relic of an earlier time,” Donnadio said in his letter.

“The New Jersey Association of Counties is in a difficult situation, to say the least, as Warren County is just one of several counties in this state facing the prospect of not having a newspaper that meets the definition of an official newspaper . or a situation like Warren County, where there is a physical newspaper like the Daily Record that has such limited circulation in a county that there is no point in calling it an official newspaper,” Donnadio told the court.

Counties and most municipalities hire newspapers to publish certain items, including ordinances, contracts, bids, foreclosures, public hearings, sheriff sales and meeting notices, when they reorganize next month.

Donnadio pointed out that a 1976 New Jersey Supreme Court ruling requiring legal ads to appear in newspapers is outdated.

“In 1976, it was common for anyone to stop by the corner supermarket and pick up the local newspaper or have it delivered to their door, and one could expect to find legal advertisements in these newspapers because of one’s ‘connections to the “‘Had community,’” he explained. “Those days are over.”

Warren County Commissioner James R. Kern III told the court in his lawsuit, “Warren County does not have a single physical newspaper for publication, physical purchase or distribution available throughout the county.”

In addition to the Star-Ledger, the Jersey City-based Jersey Journal, the Trenton Times, the South Jersey Times and the Hunterdon County Democrat will also close; Only Newhouse’s NJ.com will continue to operate in a purely online format.

Dan Sforza, editor-in-chief of the Bergen Record, denied that his newspaper was considering going fully online.

Some communities have weekly newspapers that continue to serve as term papers.