The Indiana Publisher

Page 4 February 2022 For years, representatives of local government associations have argued for the elimination of newspaper publication of public notices. They've ignored the argu- ment that newspaper distribution acts as a check on misbehavior by public officials. Trust us is the implicit message as to how trans- parent they will be. And while most elected offi- cials could be trusted to do the right thing, our founding fathers established a republic with checks- and-balances to deal with those officials who might not be guided by their better angels. According to some Elkhart County citizens, county officials manipulated the placement of a public notice in an attempt to hide their intentions from their own voters. Lora Hoff reached out to the Hoosier State Press Association in January in search of particular public notices for a public hear- ing by the county commissioners to consider an expansion of the Elkhart County Landfill. While most public notices placed by the commissioners are published in The Truth (Elkhart) and The Goshen News, Hoff discovered that the notices were placed in the Goshen newspaper and the Wakarusa Tribune, rather than in The Truth. Hoff said the landfill's location in the county means an expan- sion would impact the citizens of Elkhart more than Goshen or Wakarusa. The Truth also has a greater number of subscribers than the other county newspapers and more of its readers would live in the city of Elkhart than the com- peting newspapers. She said her neighbors and her missed the opportunity to speak at the hearing concerning the landfill because the notice had not been published in their local paper (The Truth). They only learned that the hearing had occurred when they received a "Notice of Decision" letter from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management approving the expansion. Hoff said they were astonished to then find in the minutes of the commis- sioners than there had been a hear- ing held Jan. 25 on the requested modification to the landfill permit. Hoff also believes county officials have also used the Middlebury Independent, located on the eastern edge of the county to hide public notices from city of Elkhart citizens. Hoff and her friends have become huge fans of HSPA's state- wide public notice website: www. indianapublicnotices.com. "Honestly, without the HSPA website, many concerned citizens here in Elkhart County would be left in the dark," Hoff wrote me. "We have missed so many impor- tant public hearings because they are not published in our largest circulating newspaper, The Elkhart Truth, or shown on the commis- sioners' agenda, or posted on the commissioners' website." From my point of view, if public officials are willing to manipulate the publication of public notices to try and deny their community the opportunity to speak at a public hearing, what confidence should anyone have that if given the authority to only post them on their website that it will be done in a fashion where Hoosiers could hope to easily find them or that they had been posted during the appropriate time period for the notice. There's a reason the state's public notice policy of using newspapers, which are indepen- dent from the government, has been in existence even before Indiana became a state. The system provides a financial incentive for newspapers to place the notice when it's required and without any editing so that the pub- lic can see exactly what the gov- ernment says it is contemplating or doing that will impact Hoosiers' lives. The payment to place the notice is the cost of a service news- papers provide, albeit in Indiana the legislature has mandated by law that government units get a discount for that service. HSPA doesn't begrudge the legislative action taken in 1927. It ensures that a newspaper in a monopoly position doesn't gouge the taxpayers. I do begrudge the argument that public notices is merely a subsidy to financially prop up Indiana newspapers. Buying fire trucks, police cars, school desks or other items needed by state and local government to serve their citizens isn't a subsidy for any company that provides those tan- gible items or services. The same applies for the publication of pub- lic notices, which along with the Open Door Law and Access to Public Records Act serves as the three pillars ensuring government transparency necessary for our democracy to work. Key Points Steve Key "Honestly, without the HSPA website, many concerned citizens here in Elkhart County would be left in the dark." — Lora Hoff, Elkhart County resident Publication of notices enables government transparency

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