public notices

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.

Wednesday, I put on my publisher's hat and spoke before the Ways and Means Committee about a pair of bills pending in the Assembly that would allow online publication of public notices.

Currently, state law requires notices be published only in printed newspapers.

The bills, 6058 by Assemblyman Steve Hawley, and 9075 by Assemblyman Kevin Cahill, would expand publishing options to online news sources that don't run printing presses.

We didn't report on this matter because I couldn't report on something I was participating in and we had no reporter available to cover it.

Long explanation for: here's the unofficial (meaning, not yet approved) wording prepared by the recording secretary that day, Sarah Kingdon, to serve as a report on the meeting.

Batavian Publisher Howard Owens was present to seek support for Assembly Bill 6058 and Assembly Bill 8075 which would give public agencies the option to place legal notices with either print publications or online news publications. This act would amend the general construction law, in relation to allowing for online publication of public notices. Mr. Owens feels that public notices should be easily accessible by a broad range of members of the public, and online is now a more common source for news than newspapers. He also feels this will offer greater options for archiving and searching of data. Legislator Cianfrini asked if this would be more cost effective. Mr. Owens responded that there is potentially a cost savings, and that he feels an RFP process should be done so that the County can get the best price from local news media. After a discussion of the committee it was decided that Chair Hancock will compose a general letter of support which she will distribute to the Committee for their approval prior to sending to State Officials for support. This was approved upon motion of Legislator Cianfrini seconded by Legislator Leadley.