Don’t like the outcome of a referendum? No problem. Just put the same issue back on the ballot in the next election, only this time leave out the part that voters objected to the first time.
That’s what the Board of Selectmen did last month in the town of Winchester, Connecticut, after voters rejected a 2018 ballot initiative that would have moved the town’s public notices from local newspapers to its website.
Public notice eligibility requirements at issue in California and Georgia locales
Detailed news coverage of the criteria required for newspapers to qualify to publish notices is rare. But last month we found two stories focused largely on that issue. Together they illustrate the policy implications of the choices legislators make when they enact public notice eligibility requirements.
The first story comes from southeast Georgia, where The Brunswick News reported on the closing of the Waycross Journal-Herald, a 105-year-old daily newspaper that published its last issue on Monday, Sept. 30. Stories about newspapers closing are not uncommon these days. But focusing, as The News did, on the challenge facing public officials in neighboring counties who need to find an alternative “legal organ” is unusual.
Hoosier State Press Association inaugural public notice summit rallies publishers
A close call during this year’s legislative session put the fear of god into newspaper industry leaders in Indiana. The Hoosier State Press Association responded by convening a Public Notice Summit, which was held Sept. 13 during the association’s annual conference and advertising awards gala.
“We had a big scare in our last session,” said HSPA Executive Director Steve Key, referring to a bill that was introduced in the state House that would have eliminated foreclosure notices in Indiana newspapers. “The bill got a hearing but died in a Senate committee.”
Michigan newspapers on high alert for new public notice bill
Newspapers in Michigan expect a bill to be introduced soon that would move all local government notices from newspapers to government websites. Although similar bills have been introduced every legislative session in Lansing for the last 12 years, this time Michigan newspapers are in a state of alarm.
“I’m more worried than I’ve ever been,” said Lisa McGraw, who has been public affairs manager of the Michigan Press Association (MPA) since 2003.
What makes this time different?
FCC proposes eliminating newspaper notices … again
Twenty-three months after it initially issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) recommending the elimination of newspaper notice for broadcast license applications, FCC last week issued a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM) reiterating its original recommendation and offering additional details about how it proposes to revise broadcasters’ public notice obligations.
PNRC filed comments in 2017 opposing the recommendation in the original NPRM and 35 press associations signed onto the comments. PNRC and the National Newspaper Association also met with FCC staff last fall to oppose the changes.
A few observations about the FCC’s new proposal:
When the city learns what the county is doing by reading the notices
The City of Hobart, Indiana, is suing a local restaurant owner after learning he breached a mortgage agreement for the purchase of the old Hobart Police Department building in the city’s downtown area (that’s downtown Hobart on the left), according to The Times of Northwest Indiana.
It’s a complicated story that is part of The Times’ larger investigation of corruption in Lake County’s tax sale process (see editorial below). It caught our eye for one reason. The city learned it was being cheated by reading notices published by Lake County, Indiana in a local newspaper. Here’s how the Times put it:
Why we call it “public notice”
Statutorily required notice goes by a number of different names. There’s “public notice”, of course. “Legal notice” is a big one. “Legal ads” is also used quite often. And then there’s plain old “legals”, as in “the legals”.
Ask someone in the newspaper business what they’re called and you may get any one of those answers. Ask someone outside the newspaper business the same question and the response is likely to be, “Huh?”
There are a number of reasons for the public confusion over public notice advertising, including the fact that the newspaper industry can’t agree on a name for them. Branding 101 would suggest that’s a problem.
Two newspapers that get creative with notice
Print circulation has been declining for years, so newspapers must become creative if they expect to continue to attract eyeballs to their public notice ads.
In Ketchum, Idaho, the Idaho Mountain Express has for many years maintained a pretty simple strategy for drawing attention to their public notices: The 45-year-old newspaper publishes a “Cliff Notes” summary of notices in the news section of its print edition (see graphic below); the summary points readers to the complete, official notices published in its “local life” section. The Mountain Express also publishes the summary in its e-edition along with instructions for where readers can find the official public notices in the print issue and online.
Unusual legislative maneuvers worry Texas newspapers
The Texas Press Association (TPA) had a challenging year in the legislature. In this case, “challenging” isn’t deployed as a euphemism to describe a poor outcome. It’s used in its traditional sense to describe a situation that was demanding and arduous.
Texas legislators introduced 7,324 bills in the state’s 2019 biennial session that ended in late May. TPA was tracking 220 of them, including 60 that related directly or tangentially to public notice. Executive Vice President Donnis Baggett describes the session as “hellacious”.
Hog farm saga comes to an end
In December 2012, residents of Newton County, Arkansas were surprised to see a hog farm being built on the banks of Big Creek, a tributary on the Buffalo National River. The state’s Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) had approved a permit for C&H Hog Farms to operate the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO). Notice about the farm was published that summer on ADEQ’s website but not in a local newspaper.
Several years of lawsuits and increased environmental activism followed.