Printed public notices boost accountability

Many of you have decided which candidate you will support in the Gonzales City Council election on May 9, but with early voting starting Monday, we all have a long list of decisions to make on the proposed City Charter amendments.

There is one item buried in that long ballot that needs your careful consideration. The city wants to stop printing public notices in a newspaper ­— if a pending bill is approved by the legislature.

City officials are backing the move claiming it saves money and keeps up with the times. However, if you peer through the city’s online checkbook, the amount of money they spend with the Gonzales Cannon (their paper of record) isn’t significant. The City of Gonzales is the only government entity in the county that doesn’t publish public notices in this newspaper.

The largest expenditure I saw in the months I examined was $1,313.12. One of the months I reviewed showed a $950 expenditure to World Book, Inc. Yep, you can still buy printed sets of encyclopedias — but encyclopedias vastly outrank newspapers as an outdated means of sharing information. According to the Pew Research Center, 29 percent of Americans read a print newspaper. Thirty-nine percent read newspaper’s content online.  I can’t recall anyone I know using encyclopedias in this millennium for anything other than decoration.

In Texas, public notices make up 1 to 5 percent of any newspaper’s revenue, so to define printed public notices as a government subsidy (a claim made by the government-website-only supporters) is absurd.

City Manager Allen Barnes is eager to move to online public notices — as are a few members of the Texas Legislature. The Texas Press Association has studied the issue extensively. They have learned that only a precious few people visit government websites looking for public notices.

Most people learn about potential actions by their city council that they want to express their views on from their community newspaper — not from sifting through government websites.

Today, newspapers — certainly this newspaper — post all the public notices online as well as in their print edition to accommodate the preferences of a readership that is split between tactile and digital methods of publication. All notices in the Gonzales Inquirer also go to a statewide aggregate site maintained by Texas Press Association. You can find all our public notices at www.txlegalnotices.com.  That’s where many potential bidders outside the area learn about upcoming projects for the other entities in our county.

Have you ever scrolled through the city’s website to see if they are seeking bids on a product or service your company provides? How about the legal notices about their budget or taxes?

It’s been part of my job since the Internet was born to slog through sites looking for indications that government agencies are up to something that readers need to know about. It ain’t fun — but it does help me get to sleep sometimes. Most of the notices are written in legalese, so we often take what attorneys have written and explain it on the front pages.

Do you really want to eliminate the possibility of  “accidental disclosure” of upcoming actions because it’s required to be published? Many readers get a paper to get details on the latest arrest or car crash and “accidentally” learn much more about what their elected representatives are up to.

Just think through recent history. Many city residents expressed a lot of concern about the initial plans for the Expo Center. If there hadn’t been a public notice stating that the city intended to issue bonds would you have had adequate notice to request changes in the bond package?

What about the purchase of property on I-10? The kerfuffle that followed that vote by the Economic Development Corporation and City Council started after the public notice was printed. The fact that those two issues arose about the same time probably raised plenty of concerns — and some animosity.

So if you are among the handful of people who reach for your electronic device before you get out of bed and click on the city website to look for a change in some pretty static content, vote yes.

If you’re like the rest of us, and need one place to look for upcoming action by any of hundreds of entities, vote no.

The publication mandate also creates an archive of notices each entity has published. If the move to digital-only notices is successful, once a notice is taken down, it’s gone. That leaves us with no impartial way to determine whether officials are measuring up to our expectations.

When we print something, it stays printed. I can walk across my office and find newspaper coverage of the city issuing $225,000 in revenue bonds to purchase the water system in 1942. If newspapers — in print and digital form — are going to be culled from the mix, how will taxpayers in 2042 hold a future council accountable on future projects? If a public project goes south, how will you know whether a digital notice on a government site has been altered to make officials still look good?

If you’re willing to bet your future tax bills that all officials are going to be completely forthright — without an independent means of inspection — vote yes. If you want to ensure you have a way to grade future councils, vote no.