Current Conditions
55°F - M/CLOUDY
(254) (61) (21) (10) (5) (2) (2)
The legislation, House Bill 1757, would allow local governments and school boards the option of posting legal notices online rather than advertise in newspapers. The bill passed the House Judicial Committee, of which Creighton is a member, on Tuesday by a vote of 18-6.
The bill now moves to the Rules Committee, from which it may go to the House floor for a vote.
"It frees up the process of advertising," Creighton said of the bill on Tuesday. "It's utilizing the technology of Web sites and searchability on those Web sites for information. It's making more information more accessible to the people."
Or does it?
The Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, which has been fighting this bill in various forms for several years, says the legislation is "contrary to public interest."
Deborah Musselman, PNA's director of government affairs, said, "It will create a host of other problems because 30 to 40 percent of our state, according to the Census Bureau, does not have Internet access."
Creighton said those without access "can get information directly from the government body by phone or in writing."
Supporters of the bill say government bodies and school boards will save $26 million a year on legal advertising. The bill would extend to governmental and sheriff sales. That could be a severe blow to newspapers, already struggling with sagging revenues.
But PNA doubts agencies would save big by posting to the Internet.
"Our research of right-to-know requests as to expenditures (shows) public notice advertising accounts for about 1 percent of their operating expenditures," Musselman said. "So if people think this is going to solve any kind of financial problems, they're kidding themselves."
PNA did offer a compromise saying newspapers would institute rate caps and charge government entities their lowest base rate for ads. The compromise was defeated by the committee 16 to 8.
Creighton believes posting such information on the Internet makes sense because "Web sites are there all the time" while newspapers get discarded.
"It has a lot of advantages because of the technology and ability to search databases," he said.
Searching databases, Creighton said, makes it possible for "a person looking for items from a given region, or a contractor looking for jobs to bid on, to find them easily."
Musselman said if government and school districts think "it's a good idea to dispense with public notices in the newspapers, then I think they'd better put everything online." That would include all open records, including salary information, expenditures, agendas, minutes and other documents that agencies sometimes jealously protect."
"Let's get it all up there," Musselman said.
Creighton said the chances of the bill being passed are good "if our committee is any indicator." However, that is no guarantee, he said.
"What happens is those who are opposed to it put in amendments to mitigate it or kill it," Creighton said. "So if it gets to the floor, we need to allow good amendments to the bill."
Musselman said bills similar to Creighton's have been batted around "for quite a while" and PNA has been "fighting them diligently."
"We will continue to do so," she said.
E-mail: lalexander@lnpnews.com
