Published: July 08, 2009 03:12 pm      

Hiding gov't from the public | Legislators intent on putting notices on Web

Editor’s note: This editorial originally appeared in the July 1 Observer-Reporter of Washington, Pa. We thought that paper’s editorial board did a great job of articulating our concerns about this situation. We are republishing their words here with permission, updating some information and adding local references where appropriate.



Our legislators in Harrisburg can’t seem to adopt a state budget by deadline, but they seem to have plenty of time to push through bills meant to punish their adversaries – the press, for instance.

A bill that would let Pennsylvania municipalities and school boards post legal notices online – rather than be advertised in newspapers – was sent on its way to the House floor on June 30. (The bill was referred to the Rules Committee for review.)

The House Judiciary Committee voted 18-6 in favor of the measure sponsored by Rep. Tom Creighton, a Lancaster County Republican.

The committee also defeated an amendment that would have maintained the current system but required newspapers to give governments their lowest rates for such ads.

Supporters say municipalities and school boards currently spend about $26 million a year on legal ads, which can be avoided by posting the notices on their own Web sites.

Our objections to this bill are strong and many. Among them:

-- There are 63 municipalities in Cambria County and 50 in Somerset County, and most do not maintain their own Web sites. They would have to do so, and that would cost money.

-- All the public notices that appear in this newspaper are already posted online at our newspaper’s Web site (at www.tribdem.com, click on “classifieds” and then click on “legals”). Newspapers provide independent verification that notices were published in accordance with the law. Government-controlled Web sites are not independent of the political forces that run them and are not easily archived or verifiable. There is much potential for mischief here.

-- Removing public notices from newspapers means making government business invisible to a third of our population. It is estimated that more than 30 percent of Pennsylvanians have no computers or access to the Internet. The figure is even higher in counties where the population is older and more rural.

Pending ordinances, budget spending proposals, property sales, election information, zoning changes – all these are important information for citizens to function in society and maintain some control over local governments and the taxes they impose. If you rely on your newspaper for this information and not a computer, you’re about to be cut off from it.

We acknowledge that public notices are a source of income for newspapers. But they also provide an important community service – printing the notices for easy access to the public and publishing them online.

Can you imagine having to check the Web sites of your school district, municipality and county every day, just to make sure you’re not missing important information about your taxes, your roads and your neighborhood?

Beyond informing the public immediately, the newspaper also provides a community with a written record of its transactions. That will be lost if this bill becomes law.

So, why are legislators pushing this bill? We fear a nefarious motive, confirmed to us by several sources within the Legislature itself. This is payback for the editorial objections we raised to the 2005 pay raise. A bill to remove the public notice requirement passed the House that fall, although not the Senate.

None of the local state House members serve on the Judiciary Committee, so they have not yet had an opportunity to vote on the new bill.

Camille “Bud” George of Clearfield County and Richard Geist of Blair County serve on the House Rules Committee.

In a meeting last fall with our editorial board, state Sen. John Wozniak said he would oppose such a proposal, should it reach the Senate.

We will be paying special attention to those who do vote for this bill, and you should, too.

Taking public notices out of the newspaper and burying them on government Web sites punishes the public.

It is one more example of government’s preference to operate in secrecy.