PENNSYLVANIA – Ordinary citizens brought a lawsuit against their Township for failure to publish public notice of a hearing concerning zoning of their land.  The Municipalities Planning Code requires, among other things, notice of a public hearing once a week for two successive weeks.  Because of the failure to follow the Code, they argue that the ordinance and subsequent amendments should be struck down.

Rush zoning ordinance challenged

MICHIGAN – Voters in Ann Arbor approved a measure on Tuesday giving city officials the option to post ordinances and notices on the city’s website, instead of in a newspaper.  Similar ballot measures were defeated in Wayne and Trenton.

Ann Arbor city charter amendments pass muster with voters

OKLAHOMA — The sheriff and city police chief, along with six other county officials, face 38 misdemeanor counts of violating the state’s Open Meeting Act.

Officials Face Charges of Violating Oklahoma’s Open Meeting Act

A notice of a local church’s plan to expand offsite parking didn’t tell readers where the lots were. It just pointed to the City Hall, where they had to dig further to get the real scoop. The court wisely said that’s not enough.

 

http://www.jud.state.ct.us/external/supapp/Cases/AROap/AP116/116ap424.pdf

This is from Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper.  Demonstrates that when people visit government websites, identities and opinions can be captured and tracked. An unfortunate misstep by the Obama administration here–but it makes the point about putting public notice on government websites enables government agencies to track the users, for better or for worse.

Cornyn Still Concerned About E-Mail Data Collected by White House Program

Aug. 19, 2009, 1 p.m.
By Jessica Brady
Roll Call Staff

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Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) directed criticism toward the White House again Wednesday over a recently dissolved Web-based program designed to target misinformation in the health care debate.The National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman, who initially aired his problems with the program in an Aug. 5 letter to President Barack Obama, reiterated his concern Wednesday that the program infringes on First Amendment rights.

“While I am pleased that the program has apparently been dismantled, I remain concerned about the information that was collected during the 13 days that this program was in effect,” Cornyn wrote in another letter Wednesday to Obama.

Cornyn requested the White House address allegations that e-mails sent through its Web site that were flagged because they contained “fishy” information on health care may have been shared with the Democratic National Committee and other third-party groups….

remainder clipped for copyright reasons. Visit www.rollcall.com for the rest of the story.

Metro newspaper sites attacked along with key government sites:   North Korea Suspected

Public notice legislation in Pennsylvania has sparked “a real intellectual debate” says  state Sen. Chuck McIlhinney, the 10th District Republican.  The bill will not likely come before the legislature in Harrisburg until this fall due to budget battles.  However, the discussion about where should a public notice be placed to ensure the public’s right to know have already begun.

Public Notice Changes To Be Discussed

Most recently, California was able to thwart efforts to mandate the posting of newly enacted ordinances to an agency website. Ultimately, legislation would have given city and county clerks the discretion to post newly enacted ordinances on the agency’s government web site instead of publishing a summary of the ordinance in a newspaper of general circulation. The bill was held at Committee where the members agreed, “printed and published public notices in newspapers of general circulation served the public better than posted notices on government websites.”

“As access to high speed connections have become more prevalent, so too have the number of people that connect to the Internet at home,” said Thom File, a statistician with the Census Bureau Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division. “These data give us a better understanding of who is using the Internet and from where.”

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/communication_industries/013849.html

The Senate Community Affairs Committee on March 31 declined to move a bill by State Sen. Ronda Storms to allow local governments to replace the printed notice with an Internet notice and direct mail citizens who signed up to receive notices. According to the Tampa Tribune, Storms said she had no idea how much the shift in practice would cost but noted that cities and counties “loved it.” But a strong coalition that included newspapers and community groups argued that shifting notices to obscure government websites would bar access for many citizens and defeat the purposes of public notice.  Interestingly, Storms seems to have joined a string of state legislators lately who have been trying to advance anti-notice bills simply because they do not like newspapers.

Some coverage of the bill action:

Tampa Tribune

Miami Herald