Take notice

Local governments and school districts do a poor job posting public information on their Web sites, an Altoona Mirror survey shows. Yet those sites are one place where they want to put legal notices.

Pennsylvania requires municipalities, school districts and related governmental bodies to place legal notices in local newspapers, stating when they will meet, adopt a new budget, sell property, construct buildings, revise an ordinance and handle other matters.

Now, state lawmakers are mulling three proposed bills to put legal notices on government Web sites, in free community publications and/or in legal journals.

Support has come from the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania and state organizations representing townships, boroughs and school districts. Those organizations say their main interest is saving money and discount the notion that it might make it harder for the public to know what their government is doing.

"Let me first begin by saying that [the state school board's association] fully supports open, transparent government," lobbyist Tim Allwein told the House Judiciary Committee in May, adding that every dollar saved by not advertising legal notices could be used to support student programs, forego property taxes and prevent budget cuts.

The trade-off for that savings, however, stands to make a difference for the public, for businesses and for newspaper revenue.

"If you can't find the information, it might as well be hidden from you," said Deborah Musselman, director of governmental affairs for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association.

Businesses, too, could be left guessing where to look.

"We follow about five newspapers daily, and we just came across a municipality's legal ad for work that we're interested in," said Marty Malone of Lehman Engineers. "If municipalities chose to put those kinds of ads on their Web sites instead of in the newspapers, it would be a logistical nightmare to try to track all of them."

Diana McClure, director of business development at Keller Engineers, said her organizations reviews 12 to 15 newspapers daily as it searches for legal advertisements and stories that will lead to work and revenue.

"This is not something we would fight if all the ads were in one location, like on one site ... but it would be terrible if you'd have to search each [government's] site," McClure said.

Contractors, she said, wouldn't like that either, which could lead to less competition and higher bid prices.

The loss of revenue for newspapers will vary, depending on how many legal advertisements they publish. Ralph Martin, president of Trib Total Media, publisher of daily and weekly newspapers in the Pittsburgh area, told lawmakers in May that losing legal ads would cost his company about 7 percent of its total revenue.

* How much

of a savings? *

In testimony before legislative committees, governmental representatives have claimed that the savings in legal advertising will be substantial. A May 2006 study by Penn State University estimated that over three years, $70 million could be saved if the state's 501 school districts, 2,566 municipalities and 67 counties forego legal advertisements in newspapers.

The Mirror was unable to confirm how that figure was calculated. A copy of the study was requested from the university, but as of Friday, it couldn't be found.

In April, Blair County commissioners said the county spends about $300,000 annually in legal advertising, which includes long lists of properties up for tax sale and sheriff's sale. That's less than half of 1 percent of the county's $66.7 million budget.

The City of Altoona spent almost $20,000 in 2008 on newspaper legal advertisements, also less than 1 percent of its $22.5 million budget.

Other local governments spend a lot less, depending on activities. For instance, when they take on a construction project and advertise for a variety of bids, advertising costs go up.

* One cost for another *

While government and school district leaders point to the money they think they can save by no longer advertising public notices, the savings are likely to be offset by expenses.

Some local governments don't have a Web site, which can be costly to create, followed by the expense of maintenance and updates. The Mirror's survey showed many local municipal governments don't have Web sites and others have sites that aren't kept up to date.

Others fail to post basic information such as meeting agendas, meeting minutes and budgets or bill payments.

Local government leaders admit that it takes not only money, but also an employee's time and effort to maintain and regularly update a Web site.

Blair Township Supervisor Arlene Bush and Secretary Betty Robertson attended training a few years ago, and Bush regularly updates the township's site. She said she spent a lot of hours initially getting the page to work.

"I worked on it [at home] when I had insomnia," she said.

The updating has become easy, she said; if problems surface, she figures out what to do.

For years, Blair County leaders have been interested in improving their site, which Commissioner Donna Gority once described as "just awful." While some county department heads have made improvements, others, including the commissioners, have not.

On the commissioners' Web page, their names are listed but not their phone numbers and e-mail addresses. The site includes a link for the weekly agenda of the commissioners' meetings, but that page was last updated in 2004.

In comparison, Cambria, Clearfield, Centre and Huntingdon counties regularly post commissioners' meeting minutes, and Centre updates its agenda Web site weekly with basic information.

Blair County's site includes a monthly budget report, posted by the office of Controller Richard J. Peo. Peo found that posting the report helped to reduce the expense of large computer paper. He said if someone doesn't have access to a computer and wants a copy, his office will print one.

* The pros and cons

of Web site access *

Mercer County Commissioner Brian Beader favors use of Web sites for posting of public notices, claiming that's where the younger generation gets its information. He backs state Sen. Robert D. Robins, R-Salem Township, who is pushing the Senate version of the legislation to remove legal advertising from newspapers.

Edward Troxell, governmental affairs director for the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs, who also testified before lawmakers in May, said greater competition for legal notices would be good.

"We have to be realistic, and we have to understand that times are changing," Troxell said.

Opponents point out that not everyone owns or has easy access to a computer. The 2007 Census indicated that 30 percent of Pennsylvanians lacked Internet access.

For those who maintain that they would rather read a Web site than a printed newspaper, many newspapers, including the Mirror, contribute their printed legal notices to an Internet Web site called www.MyPublicNotices.com.

More than 90 Pennsylvania newspapers offer this alternative access at no additional charge.

Through their print edition and Web sites, newspapers are reaching larger audiences than ever before, said Martin Till, chairman of the newspaper association's government affairs committee and publisher of Easton Publishing, the company that produces the Easton Express.

Till also argues that putting public notices on government-run Web sites is tantamount to shielding them from public view.

Web traffic calculators confirm that the number of people looking at newspaper Web sites dwarf many municipal Web sites by at least 10 times, Till said.

Another objection Till raises is aimed at putting public notice advertisements in shopper publications, described in House Bill 677 as community papers of mass dissemination.

"These are printed publications that contain advertising and sometimes press releases," Till said. "They are free to the public and can be mailed, thrown in driveways or placed on street corners to be picked up. ... They are not right for public notices."

* Some other concerns *

Vulnerability is another objection for putting legal notices on Web sites.

In August, the city of Madison, Wis., temporarily took down its Web site information after a hacker gained access.

Also thanks to a hacker, a southern San Francisco company's site sent users to a pornography site.

Those may be the exceptions, but Web site operators do typically control their site's content, including where information is placed, how hard or easy it is to locate and what related links are available.

Till suspects that putting public notices on government Web sites will subject government leaders to charges of abuse and cronyism, linked to individuals or businesses "in the know."

"Controversial actions," Till said, "could easily be hidden in the pages of a pennysaver or a newly-created government Web site."

Representatives for townships, boroughs and counties disagree and say they will post the same kind of advertisements on their Web sites or in less-expensive shoppers, as they now post in newspapers and save money.

"I don't think secret meetings help anyone," Allwein said when he testified before lawmakers.

Musselman, who likened the inability to find information to it being hidden, said the newspaper association is looking at the change from a different viewpoint.

"We're talking about government saying, 'Don't worry. Trust us,'" Musselman said.

* Has that ever

happened? *

Almost a year ago, the amount of information in the Blair County Salary Board minutes became condensed.

For years, those minutes included information and discussions that factored into decisions on county jobs.

In July, commissioners Chairman Terry Tomassetti requested the minutes be condensed to list specific salary board action. He called that "the more prudent way and the more legally acceptable way for preparation of the minutes."

Robert's Rules of Order, which details rules for conducting business and social meetings, supports Tomassetti's position. But if history repeats itself, salary board members will someday question a prior action. In the past, they've used the detailed minutes to find an answer.

Peo, salary board secretary, said he doesn't like the lack of information within the minutes. What used to be five to six typed pages has been reduced to about two pages.

Robertson routinely posts Blair Township's lengthy meeting minutes after the supervisors review and approve them.

Bush said she thinks that format works well.

"If you didn't do them that way, I think we'd have complaints," Bush said.

Robertson said she prefers to write the minutes that way.

"I think you need the conversation that leads up to the decision," Bush said.

More than once, Blair Township supervisors have come up with questions linked with past meetings. In response, Robertson has read her detailed minutes aloud.

Several local governments tape record their meetings, but those recordings have typically been regarded as an aid for the person taking the minutes. Under the Pennsylvania Open Records Law that took effect Jan. 1, tape recordings of public meetings are now considered public records. But once official minutes are approved, the governmental body has the option of destroying the tape.

Terry Mutchler, director of Pennsylvania's Office of Open Records, said her office has not yet taken a position on the proposed legislation. From her perspective, she said the most important consideration should be access to information.

"The goal of this office is to ensure that citizens have access to open records in the commonwealth in a way that's easy," Mutchler said. "If that's not the case, we'd be against it."

Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 946-7456.