Build the Relationship Before You Need It
Election season is more than a time for newspapers to cover candidates and campaigns. It is also an opportunity for publishers and editors to begin building relationships with the people who may soon be making decisions that directly affect newspapers—and the communities they serve.
As candidates for state legislatures campaign in your communities, take the time to get to know them. Invite them to your newspaper. Introduce yourself at a candidate forum or community event. Sit down for coffee. Ask about the issues they care about but also use the opportunity to explain what your newspaper does and the challenges facing local journalism.
Most importantly, start educating them about public notice.
Too often, newspaper professionals wait until legislation threatening public notice is introduced before reaching out to lawmakers. By then, we are trying to explain a complicated issue while simultaneously asking legislators to take a position.
It is much more effective to establish that relationship—and provide that education—before a crisis occurs.
Explain why public notice is not simply another advertising category for newspapers. Talk about the role newspapers play as independent third parties that distribute notices beyond government-controlled websites. Show candidates where notices appear in your newspaper and on your website. Explain how readers use them to learn about zoning changes, budgets, tax issues, foreclosures, environmental permits and other government actions that can directly affect their lives.
And don’t stop with public notice.
Future legislators should understand the broader business of newspapering. Talk with them about postal costs, government advertising, access to public records and meetings, taxes and regulations affecting small businesses, and the economic realities of producing independent local journalism.
These conversations should not be partisan. Newspapers need relationships with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Today’s candidate may be tomorrow’s legislator, committee chair or legislative leader.
The goal isn’t to wait until you need a vote and then introduce yourself. The goal is for lawmakers to already know who you are, understand what your newspaper contributes to the community and recognize you as a trusted resource when questions involving newspapers, public notice and government transparency arise.
So, during this election season, cover the candidates—but get to know them, too.
A relationship built today could make an enormous difference when an important newspaper issue reaches the statehouse tomorrow.
How Public Notice Informs Citizens about Data Centers
Tonda Rush wrote a booklet for PNRC distribution concerning data centers and public notice. It can be accessed on the website, and state press associations can contact Detroit Legal News if they want to co-brand for distribution. Below is a description of the booklet.
New PNRC Brochure Highlights Role of Public Notice in Data Center Debates
As communities across the country grapple with proposals for new data centers, the Public Notice Resource Center has developed a new brochure to help newspapers, policymakers and the public understand an important part of those debates: public notice is often where public participation begins.
Public notice in newspapers is a centuries-old legal requirement designed to ensure citizens know what their government is doing — and have an opportunity to hold public officials accountable.
Notices alert residents to decisions that can have a lasting impact on their communities, including zoning and land-use changes, water and environmental permits, tax incentives, utility matters, public hearings, and government spending.
Those notices are becoming increasingly important as communities consider large-scale data center developments.
Data centers are being proposed and built across the country, bringing with them debates about economic development, jobs, tax revenue, energy and water use, utility costs, land use, environmental impacts, and the character of surrounding communities.
Supporters may see a data center as an important economic development opportunity. Others may have concerns about its impact on nearby property, natural resources, infrastructure, utility rates or the general peace and enjoyment of their community.
Regardless of where someone stands on a particular project, residents need to know what is being proposed, what government action is being considered and when they have an opportunity to make their voices heard.
Very often, the doorway into that process is a public notice.
A zoning notice may be the first indication that a major development is being considered. A notice about a planning commission or local government meeting can tell residents when they can speak. Environmental, water or utility notices can provide information about other potential impacts. Notices regarding tax incentives or public financing can help taxpayers understand what their community may be asked to contribute.
That is why keeping public notices accessible, independent, and widely distributed matters.
The new PNRC Data Center brochure is designed as a resource newspapers can use to explain that connection to readers, public officials, and community leaders. It provides an overview of the issues surrounding data center development and demonstrates why newspaper public notice remains an essential part of an informed public discussion.
Newspapers are encouraged to share the brochure with local officials, legislators, planning and zoning officials, economic development organizations and others involved in data center discussions.
Data centers may be a new issue for many communities. The principle behind public notice is not: When government decisions affect the public, the public deserves to know before those decisions are made.
And as the debate over data centers grows, public notice will be increasingly crucial to making sure communities — and the people who live in them — have the information they need to participate.
Link to Flipbook: https://www.pnrc.net/public-notice-data-center-report/
Newsletter Partner
The PNRC newsletter has now added the Wisconsin NewsMedia Association to the list of co-branded participating states.
PNRC Presentation at the National Newspaper Association
The Flash Session at the NNA Annual Convention in Detroit was on September 17. The program description was:
Keeping Public Notice Strong with Jim Tarrant, Public Notice Resource Center ∙ Join this fast-paced session for practical tips and proven strategies to help protect and strengthen public notice in your state. Learn how to build relationships with lawmakers, respond to proposals that threaten newspaper publication, communicate the value of independent public notice, and take proactive steps to keep public notices where they belong — in newspapers and on newspaper websites. Whether you’re facing an immediate challenge or preparing for one, you’ll leave with ideas you can put to work right away.
The session gave PNRC exposure to the attendees and a forum to promote the importance of public notice in newspapers, their e-editions, and statewide websites as the trusted independent third party.
PNRC was a sponsor of the NNA Convention.
PNRC Webinar
PNRC is working with the authors of the Florida Study to host a Webinar on the importance of keeping public notice in newspapers. As we always encourage newspapers to talk with elected leaders, the online seminar could offer insight and background for state press associations in the ongoing battles, the Florida Study clearly supports the need for public notices in newspapers.
Public Notice State Outreach
PNRC offers assistance and support for public and legal notice legislation. These represented both bills favorable to and harmful to public notice.
Georgia
After receiving an email from a GPA member, PNRC staff contacted the Georgia Press Association to offer assistance.
The GPA member indicated he plans to testify in October before a General Assembly committee. He will tell the legislators how newspapers are going digital and how the law needs to be updated to reflect that.
Please let the Public Notice Resource Center know if you would like PNRC to provide a letter or zoom testimony in support of legacy newspapers being able to publish public and legal notices in print and/or digital editions.
GPA staff responded to PNRC – Thank you very much for reaching out!
If you have a public notice story
or a bill that may be of interest.
Please send information to
Jim Tarrant at jim@pnrc.net.
Current Legislation (Click to View the Map ) or Click Image Below.
LEGISLATION
California
California enacted two laws of interest to newspapers.
Publication: newspapers of general circulation
AB 2323 This bill requires that any public notice that is legally mandated to be published in a “newspaper of general circulation”—meaning a newspaper that meets specific criteria like having paying subscribers and being published regularly—must now appear both in the newspaper’s printed edition and on its website or electronic version. The bill also prohibits newspapers from charging extra fees for people to access these public notices online or for the act of posting them online, though they can still charge for other content on their websites. Furthermore, minor errors or temporary outages affecting the online publication of a legal notice will not invalidate the notice if it is correctly published in the print version.
Governor Gavin Newsom today signed legislation to strengthen local journalism and support the reporters who hold those in power accountable, establishing a new funding mechanism to help qualifying local news organizations hire and retain journalists working in California.
While President Trump continues to attack the free press, California is supporting independent journalism. By signing this bill, we are signaling the profound role journalists play to cover essential issues like local schools, city halls, courts, public safety agencies, businesses, and neighborhoods. A free press is not supposed to make government comfortable. It’s supposed to make government accountable.
Governor Newsom signs bill strengthening local journalism, defending a free press as cornerstone of democracy
Sep 30, 2026
Governor Gavin Newsom
Assembly Bill 2222 by Assemblymember Christopher Ward (D-San Diego) and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) creates refundable tax credits beginning in 2027 for qualifying local news organizations based on their employment of qualifying journalists. The credit is designed to support both existing newsroom jobs and new journalism positions.
Governor Newsom signed the legislation in his office surrounded by members of the Capitol Press Corps — and then took questions from the reporters who cover his administration.
Strong local journalism strengthens democracy.
Local journalists are often the public’s eyes and ears inside city halls, school boards, courtrooms, and state capitols. Their reporting helps Californians understand decisions being made in their name, scrutinize the people making them and participate more fully in their communities. Under the new law, qualifying local news organizations may receive refundable credits tied to the employment of California journalists, including:
✅ Supporting full-time and part-time journalism jobs at qualifying local news organizations.
✅ Providing additional support for new journalism positions, encouraging newsrooms to add reporting capacity.
✅ Applying the credit across local digital, broadcast and print news organizations that meet certain requirements.
✅ Requiring qualifying organizations to maintain editorial standards, including publicly displaying an error-correction and clarification policy.
✅ Excluding organizations controlled by political organizations or social-welfare entities from eligibility.
The tax credit applies to taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2027, and before January 1, 2032.
Want To Build A Data Center? Fund The Journalists Who Will Hold It Accountable
AI companies could make one-time contributions to permanent endowments, giving communities watchdog reporting without giving the companies control.
September 17th, 2026 By Steven Waldman
Originally published in Poynter on Sept. 17, 2026 by Steven Waldman. Steven Waldman is president of Rebuild Local News and co-founder of Report for America.
Communities and state governments that are inclined to host new data centers are now realizing that (thanks to the moratorium movement) they possess something surprising: serious leverage. They can and should ask for benefits from AI companies that will make the project worthwhile.
In July, the Trump administration took an action that should prompt a partial rethink of what exactly communities are asking for. The administration proposed a rule that would eliminate federal requirements that states provide public notice and solicit comments on certain air pollution permits, including some permits for data centers. (The Environmental Protection Agency’s administrator said a priority for the agency was to “make the United States the artificial intelligence capital of the world.”)
This reminds us that in addition to the core demands about electricity, pollution and water, community benefit agreements or state-enforced rules should guarantee that residents get something just as precious — accurate information, not just in the first few months but forever.
Communities that opt for negotiation rather than a moratorium should ask not only for better data disclosure but also for something that would make those efforts far more meaningful and durable: a couple of independent local reporters to follow up on all of the commitments that are being made.
In many places, local news is not currently resourced well enough to hold these companies and deals accountable. Although the collapse of local news has hurt communities of all sorts, it appears that areas with data centers are particularly starved of good local reporting. Stunningly, there are 71 data centers in counties with fewer than one local journalist equivalent per 100,000 people, according to an analysis by Rebuild Local News. The already-lousy national average is 7.8 local journalist equivalents per 100,000 people now, down from 40 in 2002.
How could this be done without allowing the AI companies — the providers of the financial support — to influence the coverage? Simple. The data centers would make one-time lump-sum donations to local community foundations or Press Forward locals to create permanent endowments. The endowment would fund the reporter, so no further payments would be necessary from AI companies — and they would have no stick to hold over news outlets. The foundations would decide which local news outlets would receive the reporters. The editors at that outlet would decide the stories. Getting the money upfront also would safeguard the investment in case the AI company, er, changes its mind or goes out of business.
Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Georgia and other states have issued executive orders requiring information disclosure. Sometimes local governments may serve as watchdogs, but they may decline to cause trouble with a major employer, especially if the company supports the political campaigns of local officials. You need independent watchdogs.
There’s plenty of evidence that local news helps make government more efficient. Less well known is that it also makes companies behave better. For instance, one study found that after local newspapers closed, violations by local facilities increased 1.1% and penalties increased 15.2%.
A $4 million donation per data center would be enough to create an endowment for two permanent local journalists. One could cover the data centers directly and the other could help cover the community in general. Perhaps they’d do stories like the one in the Gothamist this week about how a data center in Secaucus, New Jersey, spilled several thousand gallons of diesel fuel into the meadowlands.
That second slot is important because AI faces a real garbage-in, garbage-out problem when it comes to local information. If there’s no good local reporting, what AI produces in response to local queries will be more likely to be false or misleading.
Indeed, one could argue that it’s very much in the long-term financial interest of the AI companies to strengthen local news. It will improve the quality of their local services.
Some of this may sound a bit punitive, like it’s all about catching them in wrongdoing. But tech companies complain that the data center backlash is being fueled by misinformation, driven, ironically, by social media. If that’s the case, having real reporters may be their best shot at having accurate, nuanced information drive the local debates.
There is plenty of precedent for this kind of move. When nonprofit hospitals decided they wanted to become for-profit, regulators required that they set up foundations that would forever fund health care.
When cable companies were first bidding for contracts to tear up streets and lay wire, they offered communities public access channels ostensibly to improve the quality of information.
Some communities may decide to block data centers entirely. For those that decide to negotiate terms, community members should consider adding this idea to the wish list. It will make it more likely that the other promises are kept and improve the civic health of the community in general.
https://www.rebuildlocalnews.org/center-fund-the-journalists-who-will-hold-it-accountable/
Former Bell Central Appraisal District chair presses cities on proper tax notices
BY IAN CAMACHO | TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER September 19, 2026
BELTON — Former Bell Central Appraisal District Vice Chair Howard “Scot” Arey says residents too often do not learn about proposed tax increases until after the fact because of improperly posted online notices.
Arey said online notices matter because a website can remain accessible to the public. While newspaper notices help, people who do not subscribe to or purchase that media can miss them.
“The first question of any city official should be: Have we properly notified the citizens?” Arey said.
Under Texas Tax Code Section 26.065, a taxing unit must post the notice of a public hearing on a proposed tax-rate increase prominently on its website homepage continuously for at least seven days before the hearing and the vote on the proposed rate.
Under Section 26.05(e), a property owner can seek an injunction against tax collection within 15 days after the taxing entity adopts the tax rate if a taxing unit fails to comply with notice requirements, though good-faith efforts are a defense.
“A failure to put it on there at all: is that good faith?” Arey posed.
Arey acknowledges cost and complexity of lawsuits make the remedy difficult for an average taxpayer.
Still, Arey did just that in 2018, forcing Central Texas College to roll back its rate because of an improper newspaper notice and an illegal voting quorum.
Arey said he had also been hard on his hometown of Harker Heights until they got it right. Now he calls the city a “role model” of proper notification.
Arey was so successful in his efforts that the Bell County Commissioners Court appointed him to the Bell County Appraisal District board from 2020 to 2023, where he served as vice chair and secretary.
The issue has since become something of a part-time hobby for Arey.
“My goal is that every taxpayer is fully informed … of every tax increase that the local elected wanted put upon them,” Arey said. “Tax increases are part of life, but if you’re going to raise taxes, you’ve got to do it by the law.”
Arey initially criticized the City of Belton over what he said was improper home page notices on his Facebook page Central Texans for Property Tax Reform on Thursday morning. Arey initially questioned whether Belton’s website posting satisfied the continuous-posting requirement under state law.
City spokesperson Paul Romer said Belton’s city website showed a notice posted Sept. 10. Another notice posted Aug. 14 appears under the site’s news listing, which Romer said rolled off the website.
According to the state statute, the requirements state the home page requires continuous posting for at least seven days, meaning it should have remained on the home page through the hearings, and the posting for Sept. 15 should have occurred no later than Sept. 8.
Romer also provided the Telegram with an invoice showing the newspaper notice that ran Aug. 26.
After reviewing Romer’s information, Arey noted that even if Belton did not meet the “continuous” portion, it may have met the “good faith” component based on information provided.
Arey revised his initial Facebook post criticizing Belton on Thursday afternoon. He said he originally posted as he didn’t know about the meeting until Wednesday’s story about the increase, which surprised him.
“They always have seemed to be a very above-board, very deliberative council, and they’ve always seemed very respectful of taxpayers,” Arey said.
Arey did not update his criticism of Salado in the Sunshine4Salado Facebook page comments. The village homepage does not show a notice, but a notice from Aug. 17 appears under the news section.
Bell County’s Truth-in-Taxation website also lists 2026 tax-rate information for local taxing entities.
The Telegram’s review found that notices were not readily available for several entities, including the Village of Salado, the City of Temple, Temple College and Temple ISD.
Arey credited Harker Heights, Bell County, Belton ISD, Clearwater Underground Water Conservation District, Salado ISD and the Temple Health & Bioscience District for properly posted notices on the website.
The City of Belton situation proved more complicated. The site shows a public hearing held Sept. 8 on the proposed 2026 tax rate, but not on Sept. 15 when it passed.
The Telegram reached out to the Village of Salado and the City of Temple for comment, as their homepages did not appear to have notices.
Temple spokesperson Nohely Mackowiak informed the Telegram that the City posted its notice on the city homepage before the public hearing and adoption of the tax rate. She added it is now available on the city Finance Department webpage under Notice of Tax Rates in the City of Temple. The City also published a notice in the newspaper on Aug. 19.
Salado did not respond before press time.
https://www.tdtnews.com/news/central_texas_news/article_7e04675c-76c4-473d-a0a2-beb2b41f672c.html