BELFAST – Residents of Waldo County begin their day today with three weekly newspapers – all based in Belfast and all competing for their eyes, their advertising and their spare change.

The Village Soup Citizen debuted Wednesday afternoon, joining an already pitched battle between The Republican Journal (established in 1829) and the Waldo Independent (established in 1985).

Just hours before the new paper hit the streets Wednesday, the front page of the Waldo Independent announced that its stockholders had signed an agreement to sell to Courier Publications, the Rockland-based owner of the rival Republican Journal. Courier is owned by Crescent Publishing of Greenville, S.C.

The Independent will be printed by Courier, said Toni Mailloux, editor and co-owner of the Independent. It will operate separately from the Republican Journal and will appear in stores at the same time as its rivals, she said.

The Independent was formed in 1985 by a group of former Journal staffers. Since then, the Journal and its owner, Courier Publications, have been sold repeatedly. Yet, the Independent’s competition with the Journal has remained fierce, and many observers were surprised by the pending sale.

Mailloux, 51, who began working at the Journal in 1980, has been the Independent’s editor for more than 15 years. She said she welcomed the sale.

“We’re allowed to stay independent,” she said, and Courier will take over management of payroll, bookkeeping and tax functions, tasks that Mailloux took on in addition to her journalistic duties.

“It frees me up to do what I love to do, which is reporting,” she said.

Michael McGuire, Courier’s associate publisher, declined comment Wednesday on the purchase of the Independent.

Mailloux expects that group advertising buys will develop among the Journal, the Independent, and the papers Courier owns in Damariscotta, Rockland, Camden, Augusta, Ellsworth and Bar Harbor.

Village Soup came close to buying the Independent earlier this year.

When those plans fell through, Village Soup decided to start its own paper, just as it did last year in Knox County, competing with Courier’s Camden Herald and the three-times-a-week Courier-Gazette in Rockland.

Village Soup, founded and owned by Richard Anderson of Camden, began as an Internet-based news, advertising and community information service in Camden six years ago, then opened bureaus in Rockland and Belfast.

It retreated from the Belfast market last year, relying on a partnership with the Waldo Independent to provide news for its Belfast Web site. Earlier this year, it came close to a purchase deal with the Independent’s owners – former employees and their families, and some current employees.

At the 11th hour, Courier made purchase overtures to the Independent, and the Village Soup offer was spurned. Terms were not made public.

Since then, Journal editor Beth Staples and Camden Herald editor Lorie Costigan, along with Journal advertising saleswoman Terri Mahoney and photographer Tina Shute, jumped ship to join the new Village Soup venture.

Village Soup publisher Derek Anderson, son of owner Richard Anderson, said free papers will be mailed to 15,126 households in Waldo County over the next four weeks. The paper then will sell for 50 cents in stores; the Journal and Independent sell for 75 cents.

The new paper will print stories, photos, opinion, advertising and other information while also posting the same stories on its Belfast Web site as soon as they become available. Village Soup’s Knox County weekly paper, the Village Soup Times, operates in the same way, using Web sites for Rockland and Camden news as it occurs.

Anderson said news that Courier is buying the Independent strengthens his resolve to operate in Waldo County.

“This supports the whole reason we felt we had to go forward with our independent, locally owned newspaper,” he said Wednesday. “I saw the writing on the wall.”

Anderson was skeptical that the Journal and Independent would remain separate entities and forecast that the two will share stories.

“Good for them if they can get the money for their 18 years of effort,” he said of the Independent’s stockholders, but “the community can’t support three papers.”

Anderson forecast readers would not continue to buy both the Journal and Independent.

Staples, 39, had worked at the Journal in three stints over the past 15 years.

Dan Dunkle, 31, a reporter for five years at the Courier-Gazette, succeeded Staples at the Journal earlier this month. He said Wednesday that the Republican Journal is “the paper of record for this community and has been since 1829.”

Dunkle pledged to work to keep loyal readers coming back, and to win new ones.

Mailloux said when the Independent formed, naysayers forecast its quick demise, saying Waldo County could not support two weeklies. Yet readers in the area respect good journalism, she said, and rewarded it with loyalty.

“We have proven that the county can support two papers,” she said. That same support may extend to the Citizen, “but I have my doubts,” she added.

The Waldo Independent

Established: 1985

Editor: Toni Mailloux

Owner: Employees, former employees and family members are stockholders;

purchase and sales agreement with Courier Publications signed this week

Circulation: 5,500

Price: 75 cents

Village Soup Citizen

Established: 2004

Editor: Beth Staples

Owner: Richard Anderson of Camden

Initial press run: more than 15,000; copies to be mailed free to every household in Waldo County for four weeks

Price: 50 cents

The Republican Journal

Established: 1829

Editor: Daniel Dunkle

Owner: Courier Publications, Rockland, owned by Crescent Publishing, Greenville, S.C.

Circulation: 6,533

Price: 75 cents