Oct. 27—City councilor and cannabis consultant Pat Davis has bought his second New Mexico newspaper, the Sandoval Signpost, with his publishing company CTRL+P.

The purchase adds a third print publication to Davis' portfolio. He founded The Paper. in 2020, and bought the Corrales Comment earlier this year after owner and founder Jeff Radford decided to retire in June.

"Apparently, I don't like to make money," Davis joked.

The Sandoval Signpost was founded in 1988 by Barb and Ty Belknap and covered Placitas and South Sandoval County. The couple published the paper almost continuously for the past 44 years before deciding to retire this year.

"We are so pleased to have found a truly capable newspaper publishing group to continue the Signpost for the Sandoval County community," Barb Belknap said in a news release. "Ty and I are grateful for their effort and wish them every success."

Bill Diven, the news editor of the Signpost, will stay on as editor and chief reporter. Several community contributors will also continue to write for the paper.

CTRL+P is also hiring for a full-time reporter to work for both the Sandoval Signpost and the Corrales Comment.

Davis got into publishing "kind of by accident," in 2020. He was looking to buy the Albuquerque-based weekly The Alibi; the deal fell through, but Davis ended up recruiting much of the former staff for the independent newspaper the Paper., including the Alibi's associate editor Tierna Unruh-Enos, who came on as editor for the new publication.

Davis has a long history with the news business.

"My very first paying job was working at a radio station," Davis said. "I would read the news copy on Friday and Saturday nights and that made me feel cool. I don't think anybody ever listened to it, but I thought it was cool."

He also co-founded and co-owns cannabis consulting firm Weeds.

Davis' role as a city councilor only increased his interest in local news.

"I'm nosy about how the city works," Davis said. "I like telling those stories."

Like the Corrales Comment, subscribers to the new Sandoval Signpost will be able to choose how much they pay for a digital subscription. Although subscribers could choose to pay nothing, Davis said that over half of the longtime subscribers to the Comment opted to pay more for their current subscription than what they were paying before.

According to Davis, local news and local government go hand in hand.

"One reason we get stuff done at the local level is because people know what's going on and they get to participate," Davis said. "We have to protect that."

Editor's note: Due to incorrect information provided to the Journal, an earlier version of this story misidentified the editor of the Sandoval Signpost. The news editor is Bill Diven. Bill Nevins is a contributor to The Paper and is not associated with the Sandoval Signpost. The story has been updated.