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.)
AG supports newspaper notice in Wyoming lawsuit
Two municipalities in Wyoming passed nearly identical ordinances in 2021 exempting themselves from state statutes mandating the publication of various notices in their local paper of record. A lawsuit subsequently filed by that paper — Lee Enterprise’s Casper Star-Tribune — seeks to compel the cities of Mills and Bar Nunn to publish those notices within its pages.
The Star-Tribune is the official newspaper of Natrona County. Mills and Bar Nunn are small but growing communities within the county.
Last month, the state of Wyoming weighed in on the side of the Star-Tribune. The attorney general’s office filed a brief in the case, arguing the state’s public notice laws are valid and must be followed by both local governments.
Newspaper notice targeted in multiple states
Bills have been introduced in at least 15 states allowing or requiring official notice to be published on various platforms other than local newspapers. That’s significantly more legislative activity focused on replacing newspaper notice than last year and approaches the level of the previous election off-year of 2021.
Wyoming moves step closer to cutting newspaper notice
Wyoming’s joint Corporations, Elections & Political Subdivisions Committee voted narrowly last month to sponsor legislation in the 2021 session that would allow cities and counties to move notices for meeting minutes and employee salaries from newspapers to their own websites. The committee advanced the bill on a 7-6 vote after hearing testimony that it would save cash-strapped local governments $400,000 in annual expenditures. Six Republicans and the only Democrat on the committee voted in favor of the bill.
Interim committees signal potential trouble ahead
Many in the newspaper industry are wondering how public notice laws will fare in light of the fiscal crises precipitated in many states by the pandemic. Interim committee hearings last month in Wyoming and Arkansas suggest the answer may depend, at least in part, on the size and scale of each state’s budget deficit.
The Sept. 11 hearing in Cheyenne left Wyoming Press Association (WPA) Executive Director Darcie Hoffland in a state of heightened concern. By a 10-3 vote, the joint Corporations, Elections & Political Subdivisions Committee approved a motion to direct the Legislative Service Office to draft a bill that would move notices for meeting minutes and government-employee salaries from newspapers to local government websites. [CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story mistakenly stated the motion was “to introduce a bill next session” that would move the notices.]