'Mountain Citizen' Allowed To Keep Name

By: Roger Alford, Associated Press Writer (AP) A judge cleared the way Wednesday for a Kentucky newspaper to continue publishing as The Mountain Citizen after its name was legally acquired by a local politician who had been subjected to several critical stories.

Judge Daniel Sparks acted after the politician withdrew a request for an order permanently barring the weekly from using the name. The politician's lawyer said she needed to do more fact-finding.

"This is a victory for us," said Lisa Stayton, owner of the weekly newspaper that goes to about 6,000 homes in the eastern Kentucky coalfields. "I went to court prepared to go to jail, so this is a great relief."

The judge had ordered the newspaper to stop using its name after John R. Triplett, former chairman of the Martin County Water Board, took the Mountain Citizen name when the paper inadvertently let its incorporation papers lapse.

Kentucky corporations are required to submit annual reports to the state. Those that do not are presumed inactive and are dissolved. The Mountain Citizen had not filed a report in two years, making its name fair game.

Stayton said she was preoccupied with taking care of a brother, who had cancer and died in May.

Triplett has declined to say why he wanted the newspaper's name or what he planned to do with it.

Publisher Roger Smith said the newspaper has published several stories about problems with Martin County's water treatment plant and its distribution lines. Photographs in the paper have shown muddy water coming out of faucets and sand collecting in sinks.

Meanwhile, the judge was expected to rule as early as Thursday whether to hold the paper's journalists in contempt for continuing to publish under the name Mountain Citizen despite an order issued May 21.

Stayton told the judge she felt she had complied with the order by publishing a disclaimer saying the paper is not connected in any way to corporations created by Triplett.

Also, she said the newspaper name in the judge's order included the abbreviation "Inc." She noted her newspaper did not use "Inc." in its name.