Daily Spectrum Editorial:SB208 promotes more secretcy

http://www.thespectrum.com/article/20090222/OPINION/902220313/1014/OPINION

A Senate bill sponsored by St. George lawmaker Stephen Urquhart is being promoted as a means of saving taxpayers money. In reality, it is legislation that would cost residents awareness about ordinance changes, water issues, foreclosures and other important public business.

Senate Bill 208 would lift the requirement that legal advertisements be placed in newspapers of general circulation throughout the state. Urquhart, in announcing the bill, said that taxpayers are paying too much money for the advertisements. Instead he wants to have the legal notices posted on a state Web site. Municipalities wouldn't be prohibited from posting notices in newspapers, but it's likely that many will only use the state site.

Urquhart's announcement about the bill came in a special press conference for bloggers that was broadcasted over the Internet. During the presentation, Urquhart said posting legal notices online would make them visible to more people. But how many of you knew about his presentation until reading about it in this newspaper?

That's one of the points against this proposal that should be considered.

Let's be honest. Removing the publication requirement will cost newspapers of all sizes money. Legal notices comprise a relatively small amount of revenue for The Spectrum & Daily News, but the loss of money will hurt. No question.

But there is a question that we ask of our legislators: What price are you willing to put on keeping the public informed?

House Bill 122, legislation that limits the public's access to public records and its right to due process to challenge the withholding of certain documents, already has passed the House and is under consideration in the Senate. SB 208 also threatens to limit access to information.

Our Legislature appears to be aiming more for secrecy than transparency.

Proponents argue that legal notices will be more visible on the state's Web site. It's true that the notices will be visible to the world via the Internet. What those same proponents fail to point out, however, is that the notices already are available via the Web sites of newspapers across the state. And the Web sites of our state's newspapers receive far more traffic on a daily basis than any state Web site.

Proponents also say the cost for legal notices is too high. In various press conferences and meetings, lawmakers have said that newspapers are seeking to charge more for the notices. What they neglect to point out, however, is that only smaller, weekly, newspapers are seeking to charge more. And that's only because the cap placed on what they can charge was set decades ago. If the state government can increase its fees over the course of decades, shouldn't the smallest newspapers in the state also be allowed to do so as long as the rates remain fair?

For the record, this newspaper is large enough that it doesn't operate under the state-imposed cap. But we have reduced our rates in recent years and provide an approximately 40 percent discount off of regular classified rates for legal notices.

Even if lawmakers want to toss out all other arguments, the idea of government not having a check and balance in the public arena should be disconcerting for everyone. Posting legal notices in newspapers provides protection for the public. If a person or city publishes a legal notice, those municipalities receive an affidavit that the notice was, indeed, placed in the newspaper and on the publication's Web site so that residents could see it and take action. The state's site doesn't provide such notification. So, how does the public know if it's really seeing the legal notices required under the law? As of now, it doesn't.

The reality is that only the people who know to look for a legal notice will do so on the state Web site. It's far more likely that residents will notice a proposed zoning change or tax increase as they read through their newspaper or read through a news Web site - something they do in the normal order of their days - than check a state Web site for actions that they don't even know are about to happen. And this plan doesn't take into consideration the people who don't have Internet access on a daily basis.

Utah lawmakers are known for being fiscally conservative. That's a good thing. But those same lawmakers also talk about how much they cherish transparency and reducing the influence of government.

Our lawmakers' recent actions don't live up to those lofty claims.