Arizona Senate votes to stop requiring cities to put notices in newspapers

PHOENIX — State lawmakers are making another bid to wipe out the requirement for cities, towns and counties to publish, and and pay for, notices in local papers.

For some lawmakers, it comes down to the question of what role, if any, the public has in keeping newspapers financially healthy.

The issue, which has become a perennial fight, is the long-time requirement for public entities to publish various kinds of public notices. These have ranged from new ordinances to requests for bids.

All that predates the internet, however, and the ability of cities to put these same notices on their websites. Cities have argued it does not make fiscal sense to keep spending money for notices that may be little read.

On Thursday, the Arizona Senate voted 18-9 for SB 1073, which would require public bodies to meet those notice requirements by placing them on the local entity’s own website.

That came over the objections of Sen. Mitzi Epstein, who noted that the issue has been up before lawmakers for at least a decade, if not longer. She saw a motive other than public finances behind it.

“I would love to have a year when we do not try to kill local newspapers in the Legislature,’’ said the Tempe Democrat. “That’s what this bill would do.’’

Epstein called newspapers the “lifeblood’’ of local communities.

“They share everything from what are the local high schools are doing in sports to what kinds of festivals you can attend, and what is the school board doing, what is the city council doing,’’ she said.

All that, she said, is supported at least in part by revenues from public notices.

Sen. John Kavanagh said that misses the point. “I like local newspapers,’’ said the Fountain Hills Republican, calling them “quaint.’’ And he said the same description could be applied to candy stores and ice cream shops.

“But, you know what? It’s not the job of the government to shore them up by forcing taxpayer money to buy their product when there are much better and cheaper outlets for the public notices,’’ Kavanagh said. “This is nothing more than a subsidy.’’

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But Sen. Lauren Kuby, a Tempe Democrat, said letting a community meet its notice requirements by publishing on its own website is not sufficient to protect the public.

“Websites can be changed at a moment’s notice,’’ she said. “They can be deleted. When you have a paper of record, you have a commitment to documenting the history of the time.’’

Newspapers, when they publish a notice, also certify in writing that it was printed, she noted.

Kuby denied any of this is a subsidy.

“We have to keep in mind that they’re vendors providing a service,’’ she said. “There’s nothing wrong with them receiving funds for services they provide.’’

At the same time, Kuby said there is a public purpose in preserving local newspapers.

She pronounced herself “a proud reader of the Tempe Tribune,’’ saying it provides information that isn’t in the larger county-wide Arizona Republic.

Newspapers have conceded that not everyone reads the public notices, especially in the age of the internet. So the Arizona Newspapers Association — now called the Arizona Media Association — set up its own website where any public notice printed in any newspaper is also run at a single online site that can be searched.

The association’s Chris Kline said that additional posting, which occurs without cost to a city, is preferable to what would happen if each community posted its own notices on what could be “obscure government websites.’’

Sen. Analise Ortiz of Phoenix was the only Democrat to side with Republicans in voting for the measure. It now goes to the House.

The previous efforts faltered.