Who could possibly want to buy a used fire truck with a rusted frame, leaking fuel tank, no rear seats and broken springs in all four of its tires?
Much to the surprise of a new fire chief on Cape Cod, there are many potential buyers and they learned about the availability of the truck from a small public notice in the Sandwich (Mass.) Enterprise. The notice sought bids of at least $5,000 for the Sandwich Fire Department’s 2007 Sutphen Fire Engine; it was published 11 days ago in the Enterprise by Fire Chief John J. Burke.
How Newspaper Notice is Supposed to Work
When the Board of Elections in majority-black Randolph County, Georgia introduced a proposal earlier this month to close seven of the county’s nine polling places, many residents were angry. Some even accused the Board of trying to hide the proposal.
The truth is less damning: Even if the Board wanted to hide the plan, it would have been prevented from doing so by Georgia law, which required the county agency to publish two notices about it in a local newspaper. And the notices worked exactly as the law intended, drawing widespread attention to the proposal. In fact, it briefly received national attention, with many characterizing the plan as a Republican effort to suppress the African-American vote before this fall’s election. Nevertheless, when local activists accused the Board of a cover-up, some national media outlets took the bait. For instance, here’s how the Washington Post described the notice process:
Notice Again at Issue in Battle Over Arkansas Hog Farm
In December 2012, residents of Newton County, Arkansas were shocked to learn that the state’s Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) had approved a permit to operate a hog farm on the banks of Big Creek, a tributary on the Buffalo National River. To learn about the permit application they would have had to visit ADEQ’s website, where notice about it had been published for 30 days that summer. The notice was not published in a local newspaper.
The agency received no comments about the application. It was approved a week after notice was posted on its website. The process was so secretive that even the Buffalo National River staff and the National Park Service didn’t know about it.
Officials’ Relatives’ Names Erased From Tax Delinquency List
The names of close relatives of two county commissioners were omitted from a delinquent-tax notice recently published in a weekly paper in Robeson County, North Carolina, according to The Robesonian. The county’s daily newspaper also reports that the names of the same individuals were wrongly excluded from the list the previous year, and that the practice of protecting certain individuals by deleting their names from the tax notices goes back at least two decades, according to a former Tax Office employee.
N.C. Papers File Suit to Block Guilford County Law
Four newspaper companies publishing in Guilford County filed suit this afternoon alleging that a law passed last year by the General Assembly allowing the county to publish and sell public notices on its own website violates the North Carolina Constitution. The companies are asking the Superior Court of Wake County Superior Court to award money damages and issue a permanent injunction preventing the law from being enforced.
Jim Lockwood Elevates the Art of Public Notice Journalism
Examining the public notice display in newspapers, their tombstone layout and dry legalese may not appear to be riveting journalism. But scratch beneath the surface and you may find a treasure trove of great stories.
Just ask Jim Lockwood, a reporter at the Scranton (Pa.) Times-Tribune, who has won numerous awards for stories gleaned from perusing the public notices in his own newspaper, a practice he started early in his career as a reporter in New Jersey. Public notice advertisements are Lockwood’s go-to resource for everyday reporting.
Michigan Approves Controversial Nestle Proposal Despite Public Opposition
Q: When does a vote of 80,945 to 75 result in a win for the 75?
A: When a state agency gets to cast the deciding ballot.
Although it wasn’t technically a vote, Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) last month approved Nestle Water’s controversial request to pump more groundwater for its Ice Mountain bottling plant despite that lopsided margin. In fact, NPR reports that the 80,945 public comments MDEQ received opposing the proposal set a record.
Town Threatens to Move Notices Over News Coverage
When politicians threaten to take public notice out of newspapers, it’s dog bites man. But when they make the same threat and explicitly frame it as punishment for negative coverage, it’s man bites dog.
And what happened recently in Phillipsburg, N.J., was definitely man bites dog.
The Town Council in Phillipsburg introduced a proposal last month to move the city’s notices from The Express-Times of Lehigh Valley to other newspapers in nearby towns with lower circulations and different coverage areas.
Here’s how The Express-Times characterized the effort:
Small West Virginia Town Has a Secrecy Habit
If a contest was held for the least transparent city government in the U.S., the small town of Williamson, West Virginia would have to be considered a strong contender.
Williamson’s latest turn to the dark side came last week, when its city council held a “special meeting” to pass the first draft of its 2018-19 budget. According to Travis Crum of the Williamson Daily News, the council approved the budget and submitted it to the State Auditor’s Office “after receiving no public input and holding little discussion amongst themselves” about the fiscal plan.
Here’s more from Crum, a deft purveyor of understatement:
Public Officials Dismissed Over Notice Issues
The failure to publish proper notice is rarely punished, so it was surprising to see local officials in Maine and Illinois recently relieved of their positions as a result of breakdowns in the public notice process. The sacked officials compounded their problems with other missteps, but notice issues were at the center of both dismissals.
In Maine, Stephen Beckert was removed from his position as chairman of the Eliot Planning Board on Sept. 14 after an investigation found the board consistently failed to publish newspaper notice of its public hearings. Beckert’s dismissal was the culmination of three years of conflict with a handful of local residents, particularly citizen watchdogs Michele and Jay Meyer (pictured above). During that period, the Meyers regularly attended Planning Board meetings and “became involved in several high-profile board cases and actions,” according to the Portsmouth (N.H.) Herald.