Wilson
In the Lake City Reporter this week, several lengthy public notice advertisements have outlined some pretty serious upcoming judicial proceedings involving a gigantic natural gas conglomerate embattled with several Columbia County property owners. These are eminent domain court proceedings that are a last-ditch effort for a public-use entity, such as a utility company, to take property from an individual for public use and the courts will decide the details, including a fair payment.
The details of these upcoming hearings are required by Florida law to be published for the public in print and online by a legal newspaper, which the Lake City Reporter is. Currently, the requirement to run public notices such as these is under attack by proposed bills in the Florida House and Senate. HB 35 and SB 402 each want to either turn over public notices to each government entity’s own website, but without requirement of timestamp or any proof of publication or go another route and publish with a legal newspaper anywhere in the state, but not necessarily in your local area. Lake City public notices could run in Key West and the legislature would consider you informed. Both are bad proposals.
These bills are proposed by legislators in other areas of the state and are conceived by a hatred of their local newspaper, probably over an unfavorable report or opinion piece at some point in recent history.
Currently, legal newspapers, such as the one you are holding, charge a fee for legal advertising in print and this includes the legally notarized affidavit, proof of publication, as outlined by law. These legal ads also are uploaded at no additional charge to a single online conglomerate site, www.floridapublicnotices.com where anyone can search them free of charge. A link to this site is posted on the home page of every legal newspaper in Florida.
In the eminent domain case, unless it’s your property and you’ve been receiving certified letters in the mail and working with attorneys, you would not know about this eminent domain situation unless you saw the details in an easy-to-access public notice. What if it was in your neighborhood? What if the natural gas conglomerate wanted to sink the pipeline close enough to your property you could throw a rock onto the construction site?
Without proper and efficient public notices, you would never know about the hearing or a public meeting where you could express your views. Public notices are a very important part of a free society. The centralized system in place is not broken. It works, it allows free access online and it provides attorneys, governments and any agency that seeks it, with legal proof of publication. The system is also maintained by an independent third party, the Florida Press Association.
The eminent domain issue is only one concrete example of an important public notice this week in the Lake City Reporter.
What if city or county government were planning public meetings to talk about tax increases or fee increases or building a sewer plant two doors down from where you live? Would you want to know about this so you could attend the meeting and redress your government officials?
You may choose to be blissfully uninformed and that’s your right. But if you want to know what’s going on, see a listing about a local meeting that could affect your property or your wallet, then you check out the public notices in your local newspaper or you utilize the newspaper’s website. The public notices are all there, according to the law, in one place, in print and online, providing a transparent record of important business. The public’s right to know cannot be infringed.
Your elected legislators need to hear from you on this issue. Tell them to vote “no” on House Bill 35 and Senate Bill 402. State Sen. Jennifer Bradley can be reached at Bradley.Jennifer@flsenate.gov. State Rep. Chuck Brannan can be reached at Chuck.Brannan@myfloridahouse.gov.
Todd Wilson is publisher of the Lake City Reporter.