Townships in Ohio are seeking the same power already granted to municipalities in the state: The power to publish notice via the Internet instead of a local newspaper.
Introduced late last week, a new bill, HB-315, would expand townships’ public notice options beyond print, allowing them to post notice on their own websites and social media accounts, or on the Ohio News Media Association’s statewide public notice site. It adopts the same language as HB-33, legislation enacted this summer authorizing cities and villages — “municipalities” under Ohio law — to publish notice online. HB-315 duplicates HB-33’s statewide website option even though ONMA announced after the latter bill passed that without major upgrades the website isn’t capable of accepting ads directly from customers.
Unlike the earlier bill, however, which was inserted at the last minute into the state’s annual spending bill and leaves its drafters’ intentions somewhat vague, HB-315 is clearly designed to empower the state’s 1,000+ townships to completely abandon print. It includes dozens of separate amendments targeting specific notices, including those pertaining to bids, resolutions, hearings, regulations, reports, assessments, cemeteries, road improvements and property sales, as well as those designed to provide constructive notice for individuals whose address is unknown.
The entire state of Ohio is governed by townships, except for those that share borders with a city or village, according to Wikipedia. If HB-315 passes, newspaper notice will still be required only at the county and state levels of government.
At least one municipality moved quickly after HB-33 took effect to begin the process of removing notices from its official newspaper. Last month, the city of Mount Vernon introduced an ordinance amending the public notice provisions of 15 local laws relating primarily to government meetings and hearings, environmental regulations and zoning applications.
The ordinance must be read at two more city council meetings before it can be approved by the central Ohio city’s governing body.
The Mount Vernon News appears to imply in its reporting that the city’s plan to stop using it to publish the municipality’s official notice was intended as retaliation for the paper’s “reporting on the city’s move to make Mount Vernon ‘carbon neutral.’” The paper also reports the city paid it $15,200 to publish its notices “in the last three months alone.”
The Mount Vernon News was sold in 2020 by a local family that had owned the paper for 80 years, according to The Columbus Dispatch. It was sold to Metric Media LLC, a Chicago-based company that owns a “conglomerate of pay-to-play Republican news sites,” reports the Dispatch. Metric Media says on its website that it operates over 1,300 “community news sites,” including more than 50 covering Ohio. It also publishes an unknown number of local newspapers, like the one in Mount Vernon, according to the New York Times.
The Ohio News Media Association last month emailed its members with an update on HB-33. “We are still engaged in active conversation with the Ohio Municipal League about some aspects of the statute that we would like to see revised,” said ONMA President and Executive Director Monica Nieporte. “Because the municipal notice change was included in the budget bill for the entire state, it is not realistic to expect the legislature to repeal this entire bill. Instead, we are working to have this issue addressed separately.”
Issued before the bill targeting townships had been introduced, Nieporte’s message also stated that “it is our belief, after conversation with some key parties, that the intention behind the changes (in HB-33) was to provide an alternative for very small municipalities with very limited funds (but) the way the language was drafted opened the door for everyone.” She recommended ONMA members hold their municipalities accountable and encourage readers to do the same.
ONMA’s communication also included a “confidential” legal analysis of HB-33 prepared by the press group’s lobbying firm.