Is Red Oak keeping its citizens in the dark?

RED OAK – In a City of Red Oak resolution dated September 2022, which began a contract starting October 2022 to September 2023 designating the Waxahachie Daily Light as the city’s official paper of record and the alternate newspaper designated The Dallas Morning News, so began a contract costing the city heavily this month.

The designated paper of record is the newspaper in which residents know to look for public notices and hearings that are pertinent to important city business in Red Oak. 

In this case it would be the Waxahachie Daily Light, a now “weekly paper” as are most newspapers in the area versus daily, since the pandemic.

Did Red Oak residents know to look in the Dallas Morning News earlier this month to be given the dates of a Public Hearing for the proposed fiscal year 2024 annual budget and a Public Hearing for the city’s fiscal year tax increase?

The information was not published in the city’s paper of record, the Daily Light, but only in the Dallas Morning News, possibly leaving residents no notice of these important upcoming public hearing dates.

Red Oak City Manager Todd Fuller said, “The City of Red Oak utilizes the Waxahachie Daily Light as its official newspaper and the Dallas Morning News as the official alternate newspaper. 

“The City attempts to use the Waxahachie Daily Light whenever possible, but it is only published once per week, and occasionally State mandated publication schedules cannot be met with a weekly newspaper. 

“In these instances, the Dallas Morning News is utilized as the official alternate newspaper since it is a daily publication.” 

According to Texas Statutes, only on very rare occasions does a notice have to be published in a daily newspaper.

The Public Hearing date for the proposed fiscal year 2024 annual budget ran only in the Dallas Morning News on Aug. 4 and on www.dallasnews.com from Aug. 4 to Aug. 10 for a cost of $1,618, paid for with taxpayers money.

The notice for the Public Hearing for the city’s fiscal year tax increase also ran in the Dallas Morning News on Aug. 11 and on that same day in www.dallasnews.com.

That public notice cost Red Oak taxpayers $5,400.

The same notice published in a local newspaper would have only cost $480 for both print and online.