Drew Wilson
A bill changing up the rules on public notices got the greenlight in its first committee hearing Wednesday.
HB 1235, sponsored by Brevard GOP Rep. Randy Fine, would end the decades old requirement that government and legal notices be disseminated in print newspapers.
Current state law requires notices from the state government or local government entities, such as sheriff departments and tax collector offices, to purchase newspaper advertising to get the message out. One of the few exceptions to that rule is if a county doesn’t have a newspaper that’s printed at least once a week.
Fine’s bill would replace the newspaper provision with a requirement that such notices to be posted on a searchable public website.
The bill would also inform residents via a “publication that is mailed or delivered to all residents or property owners throughout the government’s jurisdiction” that they can receive public notices in the mail or by email.
“When the public notice law was established, print newspapers were the dominant communications vehicle for our citizens,” Fine said when he introduced the bill.
“With the advent of the internet and smartphones and the dramatic declines in print circulation, that is no longer the case,” he added. “Taxpayers deserve easy access to public notices without having to spend hundreds of millions of dollars subsidizing a medium whose time has passed.
The affirmative vote by the Local, Federal & Veterans Affairs Subcommittee was the bill’s first. The Senate companion, SB 1676, has not yet been taken up in committee.
One comment
cheryl cook
March 29, 2019 at 4:27 am
It’s about time. Some “hometown newspapers” that have received government monies to carry these notices are nothing other than propaganda mills being kept alive by mandatory taxpayer funding such as you describe in your piece. Locally, we watched in amazement as a “hometown newspaper” recently endorsed the unemployable husband – who had been fired from his position after years and years of abusive behavior – of a longtime, “reporter”. The “reporter” never rose above the level of high school and for decades used her “newspaper” to twist gossip about residents and employees that her husband gave her for her stories in order to control the community masses. My guess is that Barbara Peterson will be front and center to help defeat this essential piece of legislation since “newspaper” owners and reporters are her bread and butter. Just go to Sunbiz and look at her ever-shifting board of directors. Also, someone needs to take the Attorney General to task for giving over the Sunshine and Public Records conversation to Ms. Petersen who is widely known to advocate to whoever is her “people” and against Good Governance individuals. Yet she is given special dispensation by the Attorney General to lord it over her perceived enemies. We can cite cases where Ms. Petersen worked against the betterment of a community. Her foundation is a non-profit. If the Attorney General wants to prevent Sunshine and Public Records experts from equal recognition on the AG web page, then hire Ms. Petersen, force her to give up those lucrative awards in lawsuits, and be done with it. Thank you, Mr. Fine, for recognizing a real problem with these taxpayer funded notices.
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