By Howard Fischer
Mail | X: @azcapmedia

PHOENIX — State lawmakers are making yet another bid to wipe out the requirement for cities, towns and counties to publish — 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.

At the heart of what has become a perennial fight are long-time requirements for public entities to publish various kinds of public notices. These have ranged from new ordinances to requests for bids.

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

On Thursday, the Senate voted 18-9 for Senate Bill 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 the issue has been up before lawmakers for at least a decade, if not more. 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 them the “lifeblood” of local communities.

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

And all that, Epstein said, is supported at least in part by revenue from public notices.

Sen. John Kavanagh said all that misses the point: the money involved.

“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.”

But Sen. Lauren Kuby 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,” said the Tempe Democrat.

“They can be deleted,’’ she said. “When you have a paper of record, you have a commitment to documenting the history of the time.”

And newspapers, when they publish a notice, also certify in writing that it was printed.

Kuby also 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.”

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

Chris Kline said 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.

Previous efforts to wipe out the notice requirement have faltered as some legislators lined up in opposition saying they are supporting their local papers.