The Town of Pembroke passed a resolution at its meeting last week supporting a bill authored by Assemblyman Steve Hawley that would allow online-only news sites to publish legal notices.
Currently, any legal notice or public notice, published by an online-only news outlet doesn't meet the statutory requirements for properly letting the public know about a variety of actions taken by public agencies. There are a number of potential actions by a government agency, such as announcing a public hearing on a specific topic, that must be published in a printed newspaper in order for that statutory requirement to be met.
The resolution passed by the Town Board states:
WHEREAS the Town of Pembroke has had ongoing issues with advertising in the Batavia Daily News and
WHEREAS the Pembroke Town Board believes that Johnson Newspaper Corporation / New York Press Service does not understand the legal ramifications of prompt advertising according to New York State Laws and deadlines and
WHEREAS the Pembroke Town Board believes that it is unfair to only allow for advertising in a printed, paid publication because it limits notices to only those residents that pay for that service; NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
RESOLVED that the Town Board of the Town of Pembroke supports Assembly Bill A2040 Sponsored by Assemblyman Steve Hawley which would allow for online publication of public notices.
The bill is AB 2067 and changes one of the statutes governing legal notice to read:
§ 40-a. Public notices and publications. Subject to the provisions of subdivision two of this section and notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, in any case in which notice of any fact is required by law to be published or advertised in a newspaper, in addition such requirement shall be satisfied by publication of the notice in an online news publication that:
a. provides general interest news on a daily basis to a defined geographic location; and
b. has been continuously published for at least one year prior to the date of publication of the notice. 1
2. Any publication made pursuant to the terms of this section shall be subject to all requirements and stipulations of publication imposed by law or by order of a court of competent jurisdiction with regard to the notice, with the exception of a requirement that the notice is published in a newspaper.
Hawley has introduced his or a similar bill every year for at least a decade. Newspaper owners have lobbied against any change in the law in order to protect their legal notice monopoly. As a result, even with bi-partisan support in some years, the bill has never made it out of the governmental administration committee.
New York's General Construction Law Section 50 currently defines "newspaper" as only a printed publication.
A change in the law would also allow government agencies to designate online-only publications as the publication of records for the jurisdiction.
