Winfield Village Trustee Tim Allen, 40, 27w174 Birch St., doesn’t want anyone spending money at local businesses who defy his demand that they help him kill The Winfield Register.

Nor does Village Plan Commissioner Dolly Pointner, 42, 27w417 Oak Ct.

Mr. Allen has posted lists of the names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of Winfield Register advertisers on a web site he operates, urging the public to contact the owners and tell them that it would “be bad for business” if they continue advertising.

Mrs. Pointner posted a Facebook item reporting that she had done so.

Fearing a boycott, many advertisers have phoned the office of The Winfield Register in a panic to pull their advertisements after receiving anonymous phone calls.

Merchants depend upon having a local newspaper that many of their target customers actually receive, open, and read, as a vehicle to advertise their wares. Advertising in daily papers is expensive, has much waste circulation, and less penetration into the area. Local publications with no substantial news seldom even get opened.

Subscriptions and newsstand sales do not cover the costs of producing a newspaper, so publishers are dependent upon advertising to be able to afford to put out a newspaper.

But tiny Winfield does not have enough businesses to generate the advertising needed, so the three weekly newspapers that were published for Winfield a dozen years ago pulled out, leaving Winfield with no local newspaper until The Winfield Register started up with no profit motive in 2007.

After The Winfield Register suspended publication in 2009, there was no regular in-depth coverage of local news until The Winfield Register started up again earlier this month.

“But some folks don’t want in-depth coverage,” Publisher Stan Zegel says.

“Mr. Allen, for example, wants to control what the public can learn about his referendum to divide-up the village and to limit their present rights on voting on all the trustees. Having any newspaper in town is a threat to him. It is unfair that he drags innocent businesses into the middle of a political fight he is picking, and takes away their most effective advertising avenue from them.”

“He knows that residents appreciate The Winfield Register’s reporting, and that it is effective in informing them of all sides. If he didn’t fear that, he wouldn’t be trying to kill it at rebirth. What is he afraid of the public learning?”

The Publisher said that Mr. Allen’s campaign has “poisoned the well” and now local businesses will be afraid to advertise in the future. “Readers will have to ask themselves whether Winfield is better off having a real newspaper, or not having a newspaper, and then pitch in with donations if Winfield is to be able to have a newspaper at all.