NOTICE BLACKOUT

Encouraging state government to make more information available electronically is a good idea. Forbidding alternatives, such as public notices in newspapers, is not.

A bill that would outlaw such newspapers notices, LD 1878, was improved slightly with an amendment phasing in through July 2009 the move to only online notices. Better yet would be to have departments direct people toward public notices that are posted on a central Web site, while continuing the newspaper notices, and to then assess the effectiveness of the electronic versions.

LD 1878, which is billed as an attempt to save the state money, jumps ahead without any such analysis. The bill, which is the subject of a work session scheduled for today before the Legislature’s State and Local Government Committee, bans newspaper publication of rulemaking notifications even if agencies have determined this was the most effective means to reach people affected by the subject of a public action.

The problem with this approach is highlighted by the fact that the amended bill exempts the Land Use Regulation Committee because of the technological limitations and dispersed population of the Unorganized Territories, which LURC oversees.

A similar rationale would apply to older residents who are more likely to read newspapers and less likely to read the Internet. If older residents want to know about upcoming hearings under this proposal, they must first anticipate that the subject is up for debate and then search for information in cyberspace.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Terry Hayes, D-Buckfield, raises the valid point that there are currently no data on the effectiveness of public notices published in newspapers. Finding out they were effective by eliminating them is not the solution. Publishing a summary of the rule change in the newspaper, directing people to the Web for more information and offering a phone number for those who need more information could gauge public interest. Adding more steps, however, will increase cost, at least in the short term.

It also changes the intent of public notification. As University of Maine journalism professor Shannon Martin wrote on these pages this spring, public notice is a “push” communication. “We have decided that some kinds of government information are so important, affect citizens so immediately, that we should not be required to seek the information, but instead it should be brought to our attention,” she wrote. Further, she said, newspapers – which have an obvious conflict of interest in this debate, even if the advertising revenues it affects are a tiny fraction of any newspaper’s total – are independent of government, serving as a sort of independent witness to government action. This bill allows government to operate without this third-party oversight.

LD 1878 changes the dynamic of the government reaching out to the public to describe its business to forcing the public to find notification in cyberspace.

This should not be acceptable to the public or the Legislature.