Wichita became the latest and most significant municipality in Kansas to approve a charter ordinance anointing the city’s website as its “official newspaper.” But the new ordinance came with a twist: It included a provision calling for the city to also publish its notices in a “secondary print source.”
Wichita is at least the fifth municipality in Kansas to replace its official newspaper with the city website despite a state law requiring notices to be published in a local paper. Attorney General Kris Kobach gave them the green light when he issued a legal opinion last year declaring that home-rule provisions in the state’s constitution “allows cities to exempt themselves from nonuniform acts of the Legislature.” (As the last sentence in the opinion notes, website notice isn’t sufficient when a particular type of notice is specifically mandated by statute, e.g., budget notices, treasurer’s reports, etc.)
Town’s choice of official newspaper upheld in Connecticut
The Connecticut Supreme Court held last month that a newspaper used for decades by the tiny borough of Fenwick to issue its public notices qualified as an official newspaper even though the paper had no subscribers there.
The ruling overturned an appellate court decision invalidating a zoning regulation for lack of sufficient notice because the paper failed to satisfy a state law requiring official newspapers to have “substantial circulation in the municipality.”
Maryland governor vetoes public notice bill, calls independent media ‘vital public interest’
As the Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association (MDDC) had urged him to, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore last month vetoed House Bill 1258, which would have required Registers of Wills in each county to publish estate notices on a government website instead of local newspapers. The bill passed unanimously in both houses of the state legislature before it was vetoed.
In his extraordinarily frank veto letter, the governor acknowledged that existing notice requirements “present a financial burden on local and state governments as well as individual citizens.” But he argued that rapidly eliminating a significant source of advertising revenue like probate notices would endanger local newspapers, the survival of which he called “a vital public interest.”
Press groups in Minn., Louisiana turn the tide
April saw an uptick in legislative activity surrounding public notice issues as many states approached the date they’re scheduled to adjourn. Press groups in Minnesota and Louisiana found themselves in scramble mode as public notice bills they opposed began moving. Although neither situation has been completely resolved, they appear to be headed in the right direction for residents of each state who care about government transparency.
- Minnesota
Indiana adopts digital-newspaper notice
Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed three bills last month that will impact the state’s public notice laws. When it takes effect on July 1, the most significant bill will make Indiana the first state to authorize government units to publish primary notice on some newspaper websites or e-editions.
House Bill 1204, which passed both the House and Senate unanimously, allows local governments and state agencies to circumvent the print editions of most newspapers by posting notices in one of their digital products as an alternative. However, the bill only applies to newspapers that distribute fewer than four editions per week; print will remain the exclusive means for government notice in papers that are published more frequently.
Get to know your political representatives!
One of the most important factors in maintaining newspaper notice is the strength of the relationships between local publishers and their representatives in the state legislature. The relationships don’t need to be particularly close. They don’t even need to be politically harmonious as long as there is a baseline of trust. Public officials who can put a face to their local paper are much more likely to consider its policy concerns.
February brings more evidence of shift to newspaper websites
Last month provided additional confirmation that state legislatures are increasingly looking to newspaper websites rather than government sites to supplement and perhaps eventually serve as an alternative to printed newspapers as the primary medium for public notice. Bills illustrating that trend moved closer to becoming law in both Indiana and Iowa.
Indiana
The tenor of public notice legislation has shifted in Indiana. At the start of 2023 it was one of the two or three states that seemed most likely to abandon newspapers in favor of government websites. Yesterday the legislature approved a bill that could instead serve as a gateway to an eventual migration to newspaper websites.
Stop disparaging public notice advertising!
Pay close attention to reporting on public notice issues and you may begin to observe that some papers have adopted certain rhetorical habits that tend to undermine the goal of preserving newspaper notice. They’re mostly innocent mistakes made by people who are unaware that what they’re doing may be counterproductive. But it’s fair to say that if those habits could be eliminated it might enhance the policy environment for maintaining newspaper notice.
News websites supplanting government sites as alternative source of notice?
Public notice legislation introduced so far in 2024 suggests state legislatures are growing increasingly comfortable having news websites serve as an alternative source of official notice. And that comfort seems to have cooled their ardor for moving notices from newspapers to government websites.
As of the end of last week, new legislation authorizing local news websites or newspaper websites to provide statutory notice in lieu of print had been introduced in at least six states, while bills sanctioning the move from print newspapers to government websites had been introduced in only two states — and one of them is already dead.
N.Y. paper sues county over pulled notices
A newspaper based in Delaware County, N.Y. sued county officials in December, claiming they unlawfully canceled its public notice contract in retaliation for unfavorable news coverage. The Reporter, a weekly newspaper based in the county seat of Delhi, also alleges the county violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments by ordering its employees to refer all questions from the paper to the county attorney’s office.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court by Decker Advertising, the agency that owns The Reporter.