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Brandes
By JAMIE WACHTER
jwachter@lakecityreporter.com
TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Legislature’s assault on the public’s right to know will face its final vote today.
The Florida Senate heard HB 7049 Wednesday evening, rejecting four proposed amendments to the legislation and passing one amendment. The bill seeks to remove public notices of government actions from local legal newspapers, those newspapers’ free websites and an independent statewide site, www.floridapublicnotices.com, in favor of government control of the information.
The Senate meets in session today where it will consider the bill for a final time, starting at 10 a.m.
The Senate, though, rejected two amendments apiece from Senators Jason Pizzo (D-Miami) and Jeff Brandes (R-St. Petersburg). Pizzo was looking to require government agencies that host their own notices to provide a proof of publication affidavit, as is currently required of newspapers. He also requested that all government websites running notices be ADA compliant.
Jason Brodeur (R-Lake Mary), who was sponsoring the bill in the Senate, deemed both unnecessary, adding government websites are already covered by ADA.
“We can’t say things that are not true,” Pizzo said, adding most county websites in Florida are not ADA compliant.
Brandes, who vocally opposed the bill during its one Senate committee stop Tuesday, wanted to require government agencies that go with their own website to post the exact website address where the public notices will be held in the newspaper.
Brodeur also dismissed the amendment, saying they aren’t prohibited from doing that under HB 7049.
“I think it would be in their interest to want to drive traffic there,” he said. “But this really gets at the consumer who has access to the internet but doesn’t know how to Google.”
Brandes responded: “Telling them, ‘Google it,’ should not be the state policy. The state policy should be, ‘here it is, period.’”
With his other amendment, Brandes took offense with the bill’s requirement that agencies be required to post a notice one time a year in a newspaper alerting the public where the notices can be found, calling it “one of the most absurd things in this bill.”
So Brandes offered an amendment to require a notice in every edition of the newspaper directing people to the site for notices.
“It’s simple, it’s straight forward and at least directs them to the website on a regular basis where they are used to looking,” he said.
The amendment that passed, which was sponsored by Brodeur, changed some language that would allow free newspapers that currently qualify to run public notices to remain an option. Those newspapers qualify based on a law that went into effect Jan. 1 and was reached through a compromise last year between the House and Senate through negotiations with the Florida Press Association.
That bill allowed public notices to remain in the public domain through their local legal newspaper — such as the Palatka Daily News — or on that newspaper’s website as well as online at www.floridapublicnotices.com, a free and independent site operated by the Florida Press Association.
Every public notice advertised under the guidelines of Florida law is included on this website. This site also must be linked to the home page of every legal newspaper in the state and be free to use by any member of the public in front of any subscription device on a legal newspaper’s website, including www.palatkadailynews.com by clicking “Public Notices” at the top of the home page.
By law, newspapers publishing public notices also provide sworn affidavits and proof of publication in print and online.
Under HB 7049, governments that choose to self-publish public notices must offer a mailed notice option for residents at the government agency’s expense.
“It’s probably not going to be daily, it’ll probably be weekly or monthly, but they have the option to have those public notices mailed to them, so they can still be informed,” Brodeur said Wednesday.