Public's right to know threatened by bill in LA Senate: SB 322..

Read all about it while you can: Senate Bill 322. Call it the “Turn Out the Lights” legislation.

For some misguided reason, at least some of Louisiana’s
state senators seem hell-bent for turning out the lights on
public notices through Senate Bill 322.

Sen. Fred Mills’ (R-Parks) SB 322, in Senate Local and
Municipal Affairs committee now awaiting final revisions
and amendments, is designed to take down the current
state law passed seven decades ago requiring local and
state governments to publish their public notices - meetings
minutes, surplus equipment sales, proposed taxes,
delinquent tax rosters, budgets, etc. - in Louisiana’s (digital
and print) newspapers.

This bad bill SB322 proposes to move these public
notices to “government websites.” Politicos plan to “let
you know if you ask” when something is happening -
meaning you having to request emails and USPS mailings,
individually. Yes, good luck to us all with that. You can figure
out what will happen if that comes to pass. You will
find out less, much less - maybe even nothing.

Government websites are notoriously clunky and hard to
use, important data can be uploaded then easily changed
and later modified by the keepers without notice to those
who already consumed it in its previous form. (That cannot
happen as it stands today.) Government website info
can be changed, hacked, deleted, held hostage.

Government physical mail gets lost or not sent, no follow
up or accountability when it doesn’t arrive. Oops. No
third-party verification, no permanent record. You’ll be
hunting and searching for where to find it all if you even
look, maybe in 100 different places on the internet.
Public notices will become public un-noticed. That
seems, perhaps, to be the goal of SB322. Darkness. It is,
simply, the government saying “trust me” to tell you what
government itself is doing. No thanks.

Proponents of the bill, comprised nearly entirely of those
who are required to post and pay for public notices, say it
will save money - even though they know the budgets of
local governing bodies are spending relatively minuscule
amounts of their budget on their current legal requirement
to inform the public about what they’re doing with your
money. In most cases, the public notices spending is hundredths
or thousandths of a percent of the governing
body’s budget. Many of our governing bodies freely spend
much more in the way of pet projects each year than is
spent on valuable public notices. And there has been no
study or reasonable effort bothering to calculate the new
cost of doing it the SB322 way.

That cost is “unknown.” We all know it will be more.
Much more. And it’s all taxpayer money.
If SB322 passes, there’s a 100% chance that more government
employees will need to be hired at literally every
level and agency of government. More employee benefits.
More computers and equipment will be purchased, more
postage spent, more paper used, more office space rented
or bought or maintained, more files to be maintained.

More consultants, many the cronies of politicians, will be
hired. Yet, they cannot and probably will not even try to
achieve what newspapers are now doing for a relatively
small cost and the needed associated current third-party
verification. Competent local private jobs will be converted
to inefficient government waste. Corruption and cronyism
will be invited in through this new SB322 dark room.
SB322 will cost more and be less efficient and less effective
than what we have now. Public notices in newspapers
digitally and in print is the best of both worlds because it
works. The current system is permanent, unchangeable,
available 24/7/365 - and is archived in both the new-world
and old-world mediums (digital and print).

Your local newspaper serves you, the public. Key in on
the “local” part. Newspaper reporters cover the doings of
local governments at no expense to the government -
unless you want to attribute public notice cost to some of
that effort. Fair enough - and well worth it for the transparency
that results. It’s worked for a long time - the internet
didn’t change things as much as SB322 proponents
would have us believe. Louisiana Press Association (LPA)
and state newspapers have all public notices on a consolidated
website available for free to whoever wants to see
what’s going on - and many do. Convenient, efficient and
searchable, available free to view at your local newspaper’s
website or at LPA’s Public Notices link on their website.

It’s all in print and online, third party verified and
checked for completeness. Verified. Permanent. Been that
way for years, for decades. It works.

Contact your elected officials and tell them our public
notices law isn’t broken and it doesn’t need to be “fixed.”
Tell your state senator you want to keep the lights “ON!”
We don’t need SB322.