Panel kills plan for online public notices

South Dakota law should continue to require government public notices to be placed in newspapers, not on the Internet, a legislative committee says.

The House Local Government Committee voted 7-5 on Thursday to kill HB1135, which would have given state and local governments a choice of using newspapers or Internet web sites to publish minutes, bid offerings and other official notices.

OK. They don’t want ot put public notices on-line.

Supposedly this is so it’s more accessible to print in local newspapers, but how many people have on-line access virtually 24-7 at their home compared to taking the additional expense and hassle of either subscribing to a paper and/or making an extra trip to get one in the town where it is available…but which is off the beaten path, and NOT a normal destination point?

Of course a lot of the opposition to this comes from the dead-tree media, so what else could they say?

The bill would have allowed people to request that they receive government notices by mail, rather than through the Internet. That feature of the bill would increase public notice costs to local governments, said David Bordewyk of the South Dakota Newspaper Association.

“I would suggest you are creating quite a cost,” Bordewyk said.

IF anyone wanted a paper copy, it is one heck of a lot handier to jut print it from the computer than demand snail mail.

He also questioned whether digital records could be altered, either maliciously or unintentionally.

“Putting information online does not equate to ink on paper,” Bordewyk said.

Apparently no one at the newspaper association has ever heard of, or understands, or is willing to admit that they know how Acrobat PDF files are set up.

Rep. Darrell Solberg, D-Sioux Falls, questioned whether Internet postings would be accessible to as many people as are local newspapers.

“Readership on the Internet, in terms of legal notices, is meager,” Solberg said.

So he thinks that lengthy legalese notices, printed in a newspaper in microscopically small print is a hot item for readership? The Chief thinks it more likely that readership of legal notices in a newspaper, even among newspaper readers is “meager”.

Besides, if no one looks at stuff on the internet, why do ALL the newspapers have websites with their leading news coverage? Surely a lot of someones are looking at the sites, or else the newspapers themselves are themselves “creating quite a cost” to no good result.

Give me a break.

This just fits the trend of government at all levels dragging its feet at moving into the e-information age….If they did that, maybe they would even have to account more to the voters for what they do when most people aren’t looking over their shoulders.