2023 was a lot like 2022: A pretty good year marred primarily by the vote of a GOP-dominated state legislature to allow some local governments to publish notice on their own websites in lieu of local newspapers. Last year it was Florida, this year Ohio.
Twenty-one states saw bills in 2023 that would have significantly curtailed newspaper notice, a number that is at the high end of the normal range for these kinds of bills. The only one to pass was Ohio HB-33.
Move to government websites picks up steam in Ohio
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.
Ohio enacts law curtailing newspaper notice
This story was originally published on Sept. 25 and was updated on Oct. 3. New material is italicized.
Last month, we reported that through the end of the summer there were no states that had approved legislation significantly altering their public notice laws. We were wrong.
Unbeknownst to most in the newspaper business, two months earlier Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine had signed into law measures buried within the legislature’s 6,198-page budget bill that will bring sweeping changes to the state’s public notice regime. DeWine signed the bill less than a week after it passed both the GOP-dominated state House and Senate by wide margins on June 30.
PNRC issues self-storage flyer
In 2013, the Ohio Legislature passed a law giving self-storage facilities a choice of how to provide public notice of lien sales of the personal property of defaulting renters. Instead of requiring them to publish two ads about each sale in a local newspaper, the bill also gave them the option to advertise in “any other commercially reasonably manner.” The mode of advertising would be deemed reasonable if “at least three independent bidders attend the sale.”
This year, the self-storage industry is backing a new piece of legislation in Ohio. SB-79 would provide self-storage operators with even more flexibility. It would: