Founded in 2005, Four Points News is the only community newspaper focusing on relevant news in the geographic area located by RM 620, RM 2222, Lake Travis and Lake Austin.
Four Points News covers commercial development, schools, traffic, roads, business, churches, students, parenting, organizations, events, real estate and crime.
Each week our coverage is collected by our team of local journalists, who are active in our community.
Our team also consists of a graphic designer — who creates amazing ads– and a loyal carrier, who is on the autism spectrum and who delivers to some 40 businesses.
We mail our print edition biweekly. More than 6,200 homeowners and businessowners hold the paper in their hands each week in Steiner Ranch, River Place, Grandview Hills, Westminster Glen, The Preserve, Strawberry Hill, Comanche Trail, and beyond.
We supply newsstands free copies of each edition at H-E-B, Randalls, Rudy’s Country Store & BBQ and Cups & Cones.
Additionally we launched a monthly sister paper Northwest Austin News in early 2023 which includes Northwest Austin Civic Association news and much more.
We are locally owned and operated, headquartered in Steiner Ranch, Austin, Texas!
Our Staff :
About Lynette Haaland, Publisher & Editor
Lynette Haaland
Four Points News
Publisher & Editor
office: 512.483.1708
email : lynette@fourpointsnews.com
A Steiner Ranch resident since 2006, Lynette Haaland has been reporting for Four Points News since 2008.
The veteran journalist started her career before graduating from Texas Tech University with a Journalism degree in 1992.
Haaland worked for the Rochester Business Journal, a weekly business newspaper, for 12 years including nine years as a freelance writer. She has won several national reporting awards.
Her work has also been published in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and other publications. In the 1990s, she worked at the ABC affiliate in Lubbock, KAMC-TV 28, as a reporter and photographer.
In June 2011, Haaland and her company, Four Points News LLC, purchased Four Points News. The weekly community paper was started in June 2005 by Granite Publications LLC. In 2023, the newspaper shifted to a biweekly publication.
Also in 2023, Haaland launched Northwest Austin News. The monthly publication serves the Northwest Austin Civic Association community. NWACA was formed in 1970 and is said to be Austin’s first civic association.
In summer of 2023, the publisher became part of the Austin Monitor Strategic Advisory Council.
Previously Haaland was secretary of the Viper Nation Academic Booster, a foundation that gave over $1 million to local schools in Four Points over its decade-long history. She was also a board member of the Vandegrift Theatre Booster Club.
A charter member of the West Austin Chamber of Commerce, Haaland served on its board and believes business leaders and entrepreneurs are the backbone of our local community.
Haaland also volunteers with a mentoring mom group and at church with her husband — Bill Seitzler, a career journalist and market strategist. The couple has two daughters who are in college and the family has been very active in the Four Points community since 2006.
About Leslee Bassman, Senior Reporter
A seasoned journalist, Leslee Bassman has made a career out of reporting on local community
issues in western Travis County.
An attorney by trade, she transitioned into the newspaper business to keep citizens better informed as to government actions and events in their neighborhoods.
Bassman is a recipient of two National Newspaper Association awards and was the moderator of the 2017 Bee Cave City Council Candidate Forum as well as a presenter at the 2017 Barton
Creek Homeowners Association Annual Meeting.
She authored “The Rotary Club of Austin Celebrates One Hundred Years of Service Above Self,” and is a member of the Austin affiliate of the Alliance for Women in Media.
As a former editor of Community Impact Newspaper’s Lake Travis/Westlake edition and
reporter for Hill Country News, West Austin News and Four Points News, the native Texan has
enjoyed years of writing for community newspapers and currently is a contributing writer to the
Austin American-Statesman’s suburban editions.
The mother of two grown daughters, Bassman currently resides in the Lakeway area with her
husband, Rob, and Ella, a beloved, freckle-faced Setter mix.
About Madison Pharis, Graphic Designer & Editorial Associate
Madison Pharis
Four Points News
Graphic Designer &
Editorial Associate
email : Madison@FourPointsNews.com
A recent Eastern New Mexico University graduate, Madison Pharis earned her degree in graphic design in May of 2017.
Along with doing some freelance design work and game development/writing she began working with Four Points News a few months after graduation.
Pharis was born and raised in the Texas Panhandle before making the short trip over to ENMU for school at age 17.
While at ENMU, she particpated in different galleries and won a few awards based on artistic work along with the ‘Fan Favorite’ award during the 2015 Halloween Film Festival. She was also on the President’s and the Dean’s List for her grades along with earning a couple academic scholarships.
While participating in galleries, Pharis also assisted with setting up several and was involved with various clubs, including the Eastern Animation Shorts Team and the American Institute of Graphic Arts, after being involved with the Girl Scouts of America for a dozen years in her youth.
In her free time, Pharis enjoys knitting and crochet, road trips with friends, and cats.