Call it the fox guarding the hen house, or government telling government to hold itself accountable.
A bill approved by the Florida House would effectively end the practice of placing public notices in newspapers for local governments’ most important actions, such as meetings, new ordinances, rezoning, the establishment of new districts and property tax rate changes.
House Bill 35 dubs itself as a cost-saving measure for local governments. It gives them the option to publish legal notices online — on a local government’s website or a third-party website — if that costs less than newspaper publication.
But by moving to an online-only system, local governments would leave millions of people who do not have access to the internet in the dark when it comes to their local governments’ dealings.
It would also give government more control over that information.
Each week, 6.8 million Floridians read printed daily and weekly newspapers, according to the Florida Press Association. So arguments that House Bill 35 — and its counterpart, Senate Bill 402, which still calls for using newspapers’ websites, but allows notices to be posted anywhere in the state instead of requiring they stay local — makes sense because “no one reads newspapers nowadays” are clearly wrong.
Public and legal notices are also posted at no additional charge on newspapers’ websites and a website maintained by the Association, floridapublicnotices.com. Newspapers must also provide email notification of new legal notices when they are printed in the newspaper and added to the website.
Can you think of the last time you visited your local government’s website? A newspaper’s web audience is about 10 times larger than most cities and county websites, according to the Press Association. Unless people go looking for notices, they won’t see them. In the paper, they stumble upon them while reading the news.
Of course, public notices represent a significant source of revenue for newspapers. Some reading this editorial might assume we’re trying to protect our bottom line (That bottom line, by the way, ensures local jobs are maintained, not just in journalism but in sales, advertising, circulation, finance and other sectors).
We are journalists and we don’t like sugar coating things: House Bill 35 and Senate Bill 402 would hurt us financially. But it would hurt you too.
With more than 4 million Florida residents ages 65 and up, moving important public notices entirely online hurts them — 14% of Florida’s seniors do not have internet access, according to a 2019 Nielsen Scarborough report.
It also baffles us that the Legislature would do away with existing private-industry infrastructure to allow government to take over the process with no supervision. If governments decide to re-create the functionality of the existing online system, they will incur significant costs.
That should be enough for small-government Republicans who control the Legislature to reject this bill.
If governments decide to do it on the cheap by posting notices on an obscure webpage, the public will lose easy access to crucial information. That should be enough for lawmakers of any party in a state known for its government-in-the-sunshine laws to reject these bills.
Florida lawmakers must answer: Does dismantling a private-industry infrastructure and replacing it with a government operation serve taxpayers? How would the public know important notices or controversial actions are not hidden from view?
These are questions for constituents, too. Contact your lawmakers — State Rep. Chuck Brannan, Chuck.Brannan@myfloridahouse.gov, (850) 717-5010 or (386) 758-0405; State Sen. Jennifer Bradley, Bradley.Jennifer@flsenate.gov, (850) 487-5005 or (386) 719-2708 — with your answer.
— USA TODAY Florida Network