Our View: Public notices serve all, not just the few

Here is our annual reminder on the importance of public notices in your local newspaper.

As a hyper-local newspaper, the Pine Knot News is a lean and keen newspaper. There are no unnecessary additives or sweeteners in the product you enjoy each week. And that includes the back of the paper, often filled with public notices.

These notices are the key to open government and an informed public. Yes, publishing them at a cost helps keep the lights on here at the office, but they also serve a valuable service to readers.

Newspapers have fought hard in recent years against the idea that notices should be self-published by government entities on their websites. Anyone who has visited a government website can see the rabbit hole this could lead to. It's an apt description because we predict that such a practice would lead to a perversion of sunshine laws that require public bodies to keep people informed on its meetings and decisions.

The Minnesota Newspaper Association keeps the fight going in the Minnesota Legislature. It has started its own free service of posting public notices from newspapers across the state in one convenient site on the web, including those published in the Pine Knot.

Here are some highlights of the credo the MNA takes to lawmakers regarding why public notices should remain in newspapers (and on their websites):

First and most importantly, public notices in newspapers are the permanent records of what a public body does as well as the notification of what it intends to do - and they cannot be altered once they are published. There is no archival history to government websites as there is with newspapers. Years from now, any citizen could go to a newspaper or historical society archive and read what the government did. The reliability of newspaper publication is so well-established that courts accept the published contents as evidence in court, and require it for many court actions. In previous years, the state auditor and attorney general expressed reservations about the potential loss of paper notices that courts want as independent verification.

Not publishing public notices in newspapers will significantly diminish transparency in government, and will actually reduce the presence of public notice on the internet. Newspapers and newspaper websites draw a much larger audience than government websites do. Readers see public notices in newspapers because they browse through the paper; visits to government websites are usually to get specific and limited information. Public notices appearing only on government websites would remove public notice from the mainstream of community information and would make it likely that they would not be seen at all.

Internet websites should not be the only venue for public notices, because they are not a reliable legal source of information. Virtually all governments, newspapers and businesses use a website disclaimer informing all persons visiting the site that the information provided on the website cannot be relied on for legal purposes. Many government websites also experience significant hacking problems, access interference, and shutdowns. Additionally, online notices can be altered with the click of a button.

Many seniors and low-income citizens do not have ready access to the internet, especially in more rural areas, or prefer to not use it. Senior organizations have historically taken a position opposing removal of public notices from print newspapers. Significant numbers of Minnesotans in greater Minnesota lack reliable internet access.

Most local government websites are not prepared to be the only source for public notices. Many sites are poorly organized, updated only intermittently, and are difficult to navigate. Government is not compelled by the market to operate good websites.

The money spent on most public notices in papers is a very small percent of the local government's budget; some notices cost nothing. A school district testified at a Senate hearing several years ago that their budget was more than $230 million; they spent $6,000 on publishing notices. And Minnesota law (Minn.Stat.279.092) permits county government to charge a fee against delinquent properties to recoup the entire cost of their largest publication, the delinquent property tax list. Local government has made the questionable claim that they can save money by putting their notices on their websites only.