When I started the Times weeklies for The Day 20 years ago at the request of former publisher Gary Farrugia, each edition had a dedicated reporter. Over the past few years, we have relied more and more on freelancers, reader submissions and a few stories previously published in The Day, plus we provided tons of calendar listings, reader submissions, local columns and our popular forum called Community Bulletin Board, not to mention other exclusive content.

But now we are at a crossroads. The Day’s operating committee, headed by current publisher Tim Dwyer, recently made the difficult decision to downsize the Times from nine editions to three and to cut the amount of space inside the paper.

So as of next week, The Norwich Times will absorb two new towns: Preston and Ledyard. Likewise, those readers previously receiving The Groton Times and The Stonington Times will now join Mystic and Noank residents in getting The Mystic Times.

The third edition was trickier, as The Lyme Times, The Waterford Times, The New London Times and The Montville Times are now being combined into one edition to be called, simply, The Times.

The good news is that Day subscribers who temporarily had their Times inserts suspended in early January will henceforth be getting the Times inserted again into their daily paper midweek. As The Day continued to look for cost savings, Times inserts into The Day were discontinued, but strong reader response to “opt in” to the Times convinced managers to return to normal operation.

The more difficult news to convey is that these new Times papers are likely to be significantly smaller than in the past and will not contain many of the features you have come to expect.

As Tim Dwyer told me the other day, it really hurts to do this, because the Times has always served a deep purpose to highlight the people and history of our community in a highly focused way. But the papers have not been making money lately, partly because of the high cost of mailing so many copies to people’s homes but largely as supermarket chains have cut the number of paid inserts.

While The Day would like to continue the Times as we have known it, the reality is that it can no longer afford to do so. In order to preserve its most valuable product, the daily newspaper and the many reporters and editors supported by it (and by you, our invaluable readers), the Times must make a profit, which it is expected to accomplish under the downsizing.

Of course, we will continue to be chockful of local advertising highlighting our vibrant business community, and will continue to produce interesting cover stories. But we simply won’t have room anymore for calendar listings, puzzles, most briefs and perhaps some of the regular columnists you have grown to love. Even our very popular My Pet Pal feature may have to go.

But I have the assurance of Day editors that many of our features, including our history columnists, may be transitioned from the Times to the daily paper or could be placed online on theday.com.

We still have a lot of issues to work out to migrate all our wonderful content to another place in The Day family, so stay tuned. Our intention is there, but it could take time to work out the specifics.

Meanwhile, I would encourage you to continue to send us material as you have in the past (times@theday.com for briefs and reader submissions; neighbors@theday.com for calendar items), and I will pass it along to the appropriate editor.

I will continue to put out the Times papers, but with drastically reduced space my main job going forward will be as The Day’s new Business Editor. I will write stories and columns, as well as design and make story choices for the Sunday Business section. Please send story ideas and tips to l.howard@theday.com.

Of course, I’m always happy to meet with civic and educational groups to talk about journalism, writing, local history and other topics, and I will continue to encourage young writers to contribute to The Day and the Times through our Young Journalists Initiative that has published dozens of articles by students from East Lyme and Waterford high schools, the Williams School, St. Bernard School and Mitchell and Connecticut colleges.

Finally, I would like to encourage you to support your local paper by subscribing to The Day at either the online or paper-delivery rate. With the Times downsizing, this will now be your best avenue for consistent local news, plus you’ll be supporting the lifeblood of democracy: responsible journalism.

You also can help both The Day and the Times by making a contribution to The Day’s Community Journalism Fund online by visiting givebutter.com/thedayhousing.

Lee Howard is The Day’s community editor, responsible for nine weekly Times papers.