For over 15 years now the Berthoud Weekly Surveyor has been Berthoud’s No. 1 source for news.

For Berthoud, by Berthoud, in Berthoud.

The Surveyor has covered the good news and the bad news, from high school state championships to the results of local elections. Each week Mark French brings you a wonderful column about Berthoud’s history. We run stories about our friends and neighbors, about people who enrich our lives and make Berthoud the special place it is. We cover local businesses and we work to champion our town’s young people.  

The Surveyor enjoys a wide, and ever-growing, circulation in town with 2,000 copies printed each week, or one for roughly every five homes. We have our copies of weekly issues available at Hays Market and in 12 racks located all over town. Six times a year we send our weekly edition to every home in the 80513 zip code (7,000), whether they are subscribers or not.

If using the Loveland Reporter-Herald as the paper of record would benefit the greatest number of people who live in Berthoud, the staff of the Surveyor would be happy that service was being brought to the citizens. Our job is to share information. However, the Surveyor reaches significantly more homes in the town of Berthoud than the Reporter-Herald. 

In an era where newspapers are said to be dying, we’re thriving. Each year our revenues increase, along with our staff of employees and contributors. We strive to make each issue better than our last.  

So why do certain members of the Berthoud Board of Trustees want to change the town’s paper of record from the Surveyor to the Loveland Reporter-Herald? Are certain trustees concerned about doing what is best for the town and disseminating important information to the citizens, or is it more about personal hostilities toward a local business?

The Reporter-Herald, while they do have an office in Berthoud, is not Berthoud’s paper; on the top of their front page they say exactly that – they are an edition of the Longmont Times Call. Owned by a hedge fund in New York, most of the copy it contains is wire stories.

The Surveyor is staffed by people who live in Berthoud and who have deep, long-standing ties to the community. The Surveyor, unlike the Reporter-Herald, sponsors local charities such as the Berthoud chapter of Habitat for Humanity and the Berthoud High Athletic Booster Club.

In saying this, we’re not trying to attack the Reporter Herald. There are a lot of good, hard-working people at that publication. But they’re not Berthoud’s paper. We are.

Over the last 15 years the Surveyor has covered town news extensively and thoroughly. During the Surveyor’s decade and a half in existence, we have covered town news under the leadership of five different mayors – Milan Karspeck, David Gregg, Tom Patterson, Steve Mulvihill and Will Karspeck – and with the makeup of numerous versions of the town board.

So, what gives? What is the town board afraid of? 

Do they think the Reporter-Herald is going to come to every town board meeting and assembly of the Planning Commission and PORT committee? Are they going to correct errors in the legal notices like we do? Don’t count on it.

Maybe that is what the majority of the town board wants – to operate out of public view.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Is that what you – our readers, our subscribers, the people we work for – want?

The Surveyor is solely dedicated to covering Berthoud news. No other publication on this planet can say that.

Our voice this week will not be making a statement. It will be asking a question.

What are you afraid of, Berthoud Board of Trustees? Because we would really like to know.