Renzo Downey
Legal notices could soon move online, ending a long-standing requirement that they appear in print newspapers.
By a 5-3 party-line vote, the Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Subcommittee approved a bill (SB 402) granting cities and counties more flexibility on where they could post public notices. Bill sponsor Ray Rodrigues, a Republican Senator from Estero, promised to improve the bill over the weekend after bipartisan concerns over its existing language.
Legal notices are public alerts on fiscal and other matters for cities, counties, school districts and special taxing districts. They cover infrastructure plans, changes in land use and other ordinances.
In current law, legal notices can only go in printed newspapers that meet certain requirements, like having a periodical permit from the U.S. Postal Service. Rodrigues called that a statutory monopoly.
“What this bill attempts to do is to remove that statutory monopoly by opening it up to newspapers, which are advertiser-based and provide the opportunity to do online advertising,” Rodrigues said.
Governing bodies could place legal notices on online newspapers if they post in a printed newspaper that notices can be found online. All legal notices — printed or online — also would be published on the statewide legal notice website: www.FloridaPublicNotices.com.
The bill also removes requirements that the hosting newspaper be for sale, replacing that with the requirement that it must reach 1,000 readers either online or in print. That would open the door to hosting notices in free papers.
Emerald Greene, a publisher whose papers covers five counties in North Florida, said rural areas often lack reliable internet. Her 26-year-old daughter can’t get internet access where she lives.
“There’s a lot of people who do not have good internet service. It’s not just the elderly or the low-income that would be affected by things going onto the internet only. It’s in the rural areas,” she said.
William Hatfield, executive editor of the Tallahassee Democrat, said public notices are often criticized as subsidies to a dying industry or a monopoly of corporate media.
“The truth is, we’re neither,” Hatfield said. “The businesses affected negatively by this bill are organizations that have worked for decades or more than a century to uplift their communities and your constituents.”
Among those in opposition was former Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp, representing the American Lawyer Media Group. Despite the bill moving notices online, he said the bill would move legal notice law backward, leaving out elder and minority communities.
Democratic Sen. Jason Pizzo, a lawyer in Miami-Dade County, said it’s an arduous process to enter digital evidence into court rather than printed newspapers. He called the bill an “unfunded mandate” that could strain courts hoping to use notices from websites possibly hosted in places like Canada or California.
“It’s no mystery we’re contemplating cuts on our court system,” Pizzo said. “We don’t have the budget to save a few pennies here. We don’t have the budget to accommodate the millions of dollars it will cost each and every one of the 20 circuits to make up for the fact this use is a judicial process.”
St. Petersburg Republican Sen. Jeff Brandes, who could have killed the bill by voting no, said he would support it with a commitment from Rodrigues that he would hammer out the bill’s problems with the Florida Press Association over the weekend.
He feared the bill won’t go away if the Legislature doesn’t pass it now and force an improved version. The House has already passed its version (HB 35), sponsored by Brevard County Republican Rep. Randy Fine.
“I fully expect that this bill only gets worse and gets assigned to committees next year … or they’re going to pick up the House bill and send that on,” Brandes said.
Rodrigues made that promise.
“If you look at where this bill was when it was filed, the amendments I made at the last stop based on input and amendment made at this stop, I think I’ve demonstrated that I will address concerns in the bill as we move forward,” he said.
The bill has one more committee stop, the Senate Appropriations Committee, before it is ready for the Senate floor.
