In a unanimous decision this summer, the Oklahoma Supreme Court invalidated the results of a November 2022 lodging-tax election in McCurtain County for failure to follow statutory publication requirements.
Statute Title 19 O.S. 2021 §383 requires questions to the people “to be published at least four (4) weeks in some newspaper published in the county” if there is such a newspaper.
(This story was originally published in the July 2024 issue of The Oklahoma Publisher, the monthly newsletter of the Oklahoma Press Association. It is reprinted here courtesy of OPA.)
Doing it right: Providing third-party oversight
“Don’t let the fox guard the henhouse!” we warn legislators when they consider moving public notices from newspapers to government websites. There’s too much incentive for governments to hide notices if the responsibility for their publication is left solely to them, the argument goes. Newspapers are the independent publisher the public needs to ensure official notices actually see the light of day.
But the argument only works if newspapers guard the henhouse by providing oversight of the notices their government clients are statutorily required to publish.
Ballot measures, council vote nullified over notice issues
Five proposals to amend the City Charter of Tahlequah, Okla., were nullified last year as a result of the city’s failure to publish the city ballot in an official newspaper, according to the Tahlequah Daily Press.
The mistake was discovered prior to the Nov. 3 election when a local resident contacted the Daily Press and alerted the paper to the missing ballots. The City Council later voted to keep the questions on the ballot to survey voters about the issues they raise.
Voters in Connecticut town eliminate newspaper notice on second try
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.