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.)
Some cities opt out of newspaper notice in Kansas
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach recently issued a legal opinion declaring that some cities may publish notices on their own websites despite a state law requiring them to be published in local newspapers.
“Home-rule provisions of the Kansas Constitution … allows cities to exempt themselves from nonuniform acts of the Legislature,” Kobach wrote. “We conclude that a second-class city may exempt itself by charter ordinance. And, once having done so may then choose to publish official city business on its own webpage.”
Municipalities with populations between 2,000 and 15,000 people are considered “cities of the second class” in Kansas.