A friend of mine recently posited some good food for thought upon the wild and woolly realm of social media – that there is a vast difference between “good politics” and “good policy.”
Good policy would comprise solutions to fix actual problems, whereas good politics keep good policies from action, as good politics is more about elected officials merely working to stay on the good side of the powers that be.
Taking care of We the People shouldn’t be a burden or an annoyance to politicians, but as we’ve seen with the ridiculous clown show that is our state legislature, a handful of richer-than-God donors have their hand on several bad bills. One that has recently come down the pike during the special session is House Bill 17, sponsored by Senator Paul Bettencourt.
The bill concerns property tax notice requirements, and would mandate tax hearing notices to be mailed, with the publication of the notices in newspapers as an optional add-on.
In the words of Texas Press Association’s own public notice guru Donnis Baggett, the bill sets “a dangerous precedent to eliminate all newspaper notice requirements in the next session.” It’s a battle that Baggett and the statewide newspaper industry know all too well.
It would be a huge blow to property tax rate transparency, as Baggett pointed out, and comes at a time when, ironically, legislative leadership are working to hold taxing entities to more account. Consider the hypocrisy of the bill’s sponsor, who posted on his Facebook page on Dec. 28 of last year that “Transparency! That’s what a Government is supposed to be about.”
Newspapers are still the most effective medium to notify the public of tax information, as survey after survey has shown. Mailing out such notices would be a tremendous expense, and subject to a litany of errors. With newspaper publication of public notices, there is the legal verification by way of a publisher’s affidavit to show when the notice was published and with what frequency, plus there is the exposure by way of multiple formats – in both print and digital.
Technology seems to, with increasing and frustrating frequency, dominate nearly every aspect of our daily lives, and with that in mind, it’s easy to understand why there is a debate at all about whether practices such as publishing notices in newspapers remains necessary. Many have argued that publishing government announcements can be done entirely online, and arguments in favor of publishing tax notices through the state comptroller’s website is the way to go.
Technology has, indeed, created many new opportunities and pathways for reaching the public, but at the same time, we’ve sacrificed connectivity for convenience. Just think of all of the beloved stores that are now defunct due to the monolithic retailer created by Lex Luthor’s stunt double Jeff Bezos, and the reconfiguring of that particular mousetrap that has launched countless online-only imitators through the years.
Public notices, aside from keeping the public in the know as to tax matters, as well as election announcements and foreclosure proceedings, to name a scant few topics, are also a source of revenue for newspapers. That revenue helps maintain an instrument for accountability and citizen engagement, which you’re holding in your hand (unless you’re reading this in the e-edition).
A newspaper is a widely available, inexpensive resource that reaches across socioeconomic divides. In fact, many people still discover important legal or civic information by flipping through their local paper, rather than by navigating government websites that can be difficult to find or understand.
At the core of a public notice, the function is to inform citizens of governmental actions that could potentially affect their rights, their communities or their daily lives, and such dispatches often carry significant consequences. With a widely circulated, permanent and neutral format to publish in, the newspaper medium allows a trusted layer of accountability – taxing entities cannot just quietly enact decisions without making a verifiable effort to inform constituents.
Recently I found myself cursing the orange and white hamburger chain native to, and beloved by, Texas on its 75th anniversary. That particular institution had, in celebration, made its hamburgers available for 75 cents apiece, which sounds like a phenomenal deal, but this was only available if you had their proprietary app on your phone. That is discriminatory; not everyone has the ability to download or install said app, and some do not have internet access. This carries over to the topic of public notices in newspapers. Millions of Americans still rely on print newspapers as a consistent source of information, instead of apps on a phone. Moving something online exclusively risks disenfranchising populations and leaving them in the dark about changes directly impacting them.
The archival capability of newspapers also provides another dimension to transparency. While online postings can be altered, moved or removed (be it intentionally or by accident) newspapers provide stable, dated and widely distributed records that can be preserved several ways. The number of requests of customers who walk into our office, off the street, to hunt down a particular public notice from years’ past may surprise some of you.
One last point to chew on here is the notion of independence. Government-run websites are, by definition, controlled by the very institutions that citizens should be monitoring. If these entities are made to be the sole publisher/disseminator of information of its own actions, this would be like asking a corporation to regulate its own advertising.
The cultural and civic role that public notices in newspapers occupy cannot be overstated. The transparency they provide – to ensure citizens that important information is not hidden – is vital in a democratic society. Hopefully this is a lesson that Paul Bettencourt and his ilk come to understand.
