Wheeling allowing ads in village, senior newsletters

Newsletters for the village of Wheeling and the Wheeling Senior Center will for the first time include advertising beginning next year, a move officials say should cover the publications’ costs.

Village trustees this week approved a two-year contract with Liturgical Publications, Inc. to produce the bimonthly village newsletters that now will feature 2.5 pages of ads on 12 total pages. The newsletter today is eight pages long.

The senior center letter, under the deal, also will include 2.5 pages of advertisements, but will double in size from 10 to 20 pages and publish monthly instead of six times annually.

Producing the two newsletters currently costs the village about $31,000 a year. The new deal allowing ads, officials say, will cover the cost of publication, leaving the village footing only distribution costs.

Besides cutting costs for the village, Village Manager Jon Sfondilis said the new deal would provide a newsletter that is “somewhat of yellow pages for the residents.”

Liturgical Publications will sell the ads. Sales staff will spend a few days in Wheeling, Sfondilis said, to contact local businesses. Only Wheeling businesses will be allowed to advertise in the village newsletter, and businesses from Wheeling or doing business in Wheeling will be allowed in the senior center newsletter.

Trustees approved the contract only after settling some confusion over language stating that an advertiser cannot “be an official, employee, agent, or contractor of the Village.”

Sfondilis said businesses with links to officials may advertise as long as the ad does not use the official’s village title and the ad is for the business only.

The first ads will appear in the January/February issue of the village newsletter and the March issue of the senior center newsletter, Sfondilis said.