• by Ray Schultz , March 13, 2024

The suspense over Alaska Senate Bill 68, which would remove the legal requirement that public notices related to the sale and removal of water, are to be placed in local newspapers, is resolved.

The Senate passed the bill on Monday by a unanimous vote of 17-0. Three senators were absent. 

The measure now goes to the House. 

Publishers had opposed the bill, which would deprive them of needed revenue. But they challenged it on the grounds of transparency. 

“The public has relied on community newspapers to keep them informed and to publish public notices,” said Virginia Farmier, the executive director of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, according to Must Read Alaska. “If the state government publishes their own notices, where’s the transparency in that?”

Specifically, the bill would allow the state’s Department of Natural Resources to stop publishing some public notices in local media, Frontiersman writes. 

The bill reflects a growing nationwide movement that would see governments post notices on their own websites, not in paid local newspapers. 

However, there are exceptions. The St. Lawrence County legislature in upstate New York recently designated three newspapers as official papers for the purpose of publishing law notices and other notices required by law to be published.