The closure of the Star-Ledger and other papers will leave some towns and counties without a suitable official newspaper to print legally required public notices. (Getty Images)
New Jersey lawmakers are exploring how to disseminate legal and other public notices as print newspapers that have carried them for decades begin to go out of circulation.
Though the issue has long simmered as online outlets displaced print circulation, it boiled over in late October when the owners of the Star-Ledger said it would cease printing physical copies of the paper and other newspapers beginning early next year.
“I can tell you, for the past couple of years, every county really has struggled with the notice requirements as the traditional press has shed some of its staff and it’s been difficult to reach someone there and go through the machinations and operations of having a legal notice published,” said John Donnadio, executive director of the New Jersey Association of Counties.
Lawmakers don’t have much time to act on the issue. Local governments must designate their official newspapers when they reorganize in January, and those with no options could face fines for failing to properly notice meetings. Any action a governing body takes at a meeting that was not properly noticed could also be overturned through the courts for noncompliance with the Open Public Meetings Act.
Sen. Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen) on Wednesday said he believed legislators must enact changes in the coming weeks before the start of the new year.
“We kind of saw this coming, and it’s just too bad that we had to wait until the 11th hour to fix it,” Donnadio said.
While some rules vary depending on the nature of the notice, notices of public meetings, auctions, and other proceedings must be printed in newspapers that are published or circulated in their county and printed within the state.
But the winnowing of print outlets will soon leave some counties without a newspaper of record.
Warren County on Monday filed a suit asking a Superior Court judge to overturn a 2010 ruling that affirmed public notices must be published in print newspapers and not in online outlets.
In filings first reported by the New Jersey Globe, the county argued keeping the decision in place would leave it in “a gravely unfortunate position of having to publish notices in a newspaper that virtually no person in the County reads.”
The Daily Record, a Morristown-based outlet that carries Warren County’s legal notices in addition to the Star-Ledger, has only 1,345 subscribers in the county, which has more than 45,000 households.
Legislative leaders have hinted at changes but have not yet said how they plan to move public notices into the digital era.
“I am committed to finding ways of modernizing the process of disseminating legal notices in a way that maintains the same level of transparency and accessibility,” said Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin (D-Middlesex). “As we explore different avenues, we will be mindful of the importance of treating all publications fairly, ensuring the public continues to have access to the information they need.”
Richard McGrath, a spokesperson for Senate President Nicholas Scutari (D-Union), said the upper chamber is reviewing a number of proposals but had not made any decisions about which to pursue.
Changes to how New Jersey regulates public notices appear to have bipartisan support. Sen. Tony Bucco (R-Morris), his chamber’s minority leader, said he had reached out to Scutari in hopes of shepherding a bipartisan bill through the Legislature by the end of the year.
“As long as we can continue to have transparency and protect the transparency, I think we’re going to have to shift to some sort of online notification,” he told municipal officials Wednesday at their annual conference in Atlantic City.
Because public notices generate revenue for newspapers, the industry is poised to oppose any plan that would put their publication fully into government hands, and skepticism of government could put the public at their backs as it did when Gov. Chris Christie pushed to end public notices’ publication requirements in 2016. At the time, Christie argued the move would save taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. His critics claimed his push was a vendetta against a press corps that had covered his administration aggressively.
The New Jersey Press Association is backing a proposal that would require outlets that carry public notices to post them to an online clearinghouse, arguing government websites aren’t a suitable replacement because they are often innavigable.
“I know this because we have reporters. We do it all the time when we cover multiple meetings — you try to find an agenda, you try to find minutes, it’s a crapshoot. It takes work,” said Brett Ainsworth, president of the New Jersey Press Association. “You really need somewhere that is where you’re looking for information about government.”
Officials have acknowledged expanding public notices to online outlets as a possible solution, but they have urged allowing local governments to post the notices on their own websites or on a state-created database.
Doing so would save money, they said, and save staffing time by removing the need to place ads in newspapers.
“It would be easier for local governments and staff, our purchasing officials, and our public information officers and clerks to post it directly to their website,” Donnadio said. “Money is not the reason, although it would save money if counties and towns could post on their own website. That’s not our overreaching concern.”
Multiple legislators who spoke at the Atlantic City confab cited costs as one of the reasons to move notifications online, and while there was no clear consensus, some backed cutting newspapers out of the notice process.
“We do need to invest in journalism, but I don’t think we need to prop it up through some artificial means by these notifications,” said Assemblyman Lou Greenwald (D-Camden), his chamber’s majority leader.
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