Note: View photos from the hearing here.
Today, the League, along with Ann Arbor city clerk Jackie Beaudry, testified in support of legislation to allow public notices to be published online. The legislation would require a notice be posted in the city clerk's office as well as one of the following: a city's website, a newspaper's website or on a PEG channel. A substitute was adopted today that allows it to also be posted on TV or radio stations.
The city of Ann Arbor amended their charter by vote of the people at the end of last year to allow for public notice posts on their website due to the Ann Arbor News going out of business. They have an email notification option you can sign up for on the website so as soon as the site is changed an email is sent to notify (much like when a new post is posted on this Inside 208 blog). People don't have to proactively look at the website now because they can be automatically notified. They have not received one request for the public notices to be mailed, hard copy, to anyone and have not received one complaint by operating this way.
As would be expected, the press associations opposed the legislation because of what they feel would be a lack of transparency. We countered that argument by saying this would actually bring about more transparency since it expands public access to legal notices. We also informed the committee of the cost savings impact this would have on local communities. A poll of about a quarter of our membership showed it costs about $1.2 million for those communities combined to publish public notices. That doesn’t include the city of Detroit, who had their clerk, Janice Winfrey, testify today that they have already spent $350,000 this year on public notices. The committee did not vote the bill out today because of lack of time for people wanting to testify. Please continue to contact your legislators and ask for their support on this legislation.
Nikki Brown is the Capital Office Coordinator for the League. She can be reached at nbrown@mml.org 517-908-0305.
(Note: View photos from the hearing here.)
73202eb6-7976-4a73-be30-9539c06b140d|1|5.0
