CNPA stops public notice repeal bill
(From CNPA Legislatuive Bulletin)
Implying that the newspaper opposition to his bill was like the "buggy whip industry," Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Canoga Park) presented his legislation last week to repeal a key public notice newspaper advertisement in favor of Internet posting to the Assembly Education Committee. The committee, in response to pressure from CNPA and key publishers, unanimously rejected Levine’s proposal and the idea that new technologies could improve upon newspaper publication of public notices.
AB 2614 would have allowed school districts to post on the Internet, rather than publish in a newspaper, public notices soliciting contract bids. Current law requires district’s seeking contracts for the purchase of equipment, materials, or supplies, to publish a notice calling for bids in a newspaper of general circulation, stating the work to be done or materials or supplies to be furnished and the time and place where the bids are to be opened.
Prior to the hearing, several CNPA member publishers contacted members of the Education Committee, arguing the following points:
1. Virtually no case has been made for the proposed change. Sponsor Los Angeles Unified School District failed to provide the Legislature with any written evidence in support of the change; not one written word.
2. The bill mistakenly presupposes the target audience of the bid notices is contractors and vendors who might want to submit a bid. In fact, public notice of the bid process in newspapers serves to notice the entire community that an important government function is being carried out in the full light of day. As one of our members pointed out: "School improvement contracts is where all the money in government is these days." Allowing these notices to be posted solely on a government web site for access by insiders already attuned to the process would wholly subvert the purpose of the public notice.
3. Posting bid notices on a government web site on the worldwide web is a sure fire method to remove the bid process from public view. The Internet is an awesome research tool; the world’s burgeoning library. In contrast, a newspaper is a carefully chosen, relatively small amount of information about a community and the lives of its citizens that people desire to access every day for hundreds, if not thousands, of personal reasons. Newspapers of general circulation remain the tried and true medium for publicizing important governmental events and activities of interest to every citizen.
4. Unlike the Internet, newspapers create a permanent, unhackable source of information. When a public notice is published in a newspaper, it’s either permanently right or permanently wrong, but not both.
5. Digital divide issues remain. Although trends shift at warp speed, it is clear that significant segments of society either are unable to access the Internet with regularity or choose not to use the Internet as a source of information.
At the hearing, Levine said the opponents to his bill reminded him of a movie in which one of the characters described the dominant buggy whip maker in the early 1900s as gaining increasing market share of an ever-shrinking market. He said that the time has come to adapt the public notice law to new technologies. Speaking on behalf of sponsor Los Angeles Unified School District, Rand Martin (nephew of Ben and Carmella) said that the public notice law in question was adopted by the Legislature in 1943, when conditions were completely different than they are today.
CNPA staff began its testimony by asking whether the committee members had had a chance to read their buggy whip today. Referring to the lead story in the California section of the state’s largest buggy whip (The Los Angeles Times), staff related the story of how the U.S. attorney, grand jury and district attorney are probing allegations that Port of Los Angeles officials awarded millions of dollars of contracts in exchange for political campaign donations. CNPA said the conditions that prompted the Legislature to enact the public notice law in 1943 are precisely the same today: the potential for corruption in government contracting remains high. CNPA said newspaper notice of bid solicitations "deputizes the public" to help root out corruption.
Chairwoman Jackie Goldberg suggested Levine accept an amendment to reinstate newspaper publication in addition to the Internet posting requirement. Levine agreed to the amendment and the bill was unanimously approved by the committee.
