Brevard County to self-publish some legal notices
Brevard County is preparing to stop posting some of its legal notices in FLORIDA TODAY, opting instead to use only a county webpage to let the public know.
County officials couldn't say what types of legal notices would be put on the county website only. Lawyers were still researching what would be allowed. Typical types of legal ads include notices of public meetings, proposed zoning changes and property tax rates.
Brevard County Communications Director Don Walker said changes likely will be implemented by the end of March for at least some types of legal notices. The move is being billed by county officials as a way to save tax money. It was made possible by a bill passed last year in the Florida Legislature, sponsored by state Rep. Randy Fine R-Melbourne Beach, that said county and local government entities could — but didn't have to — publish their own legal notices on a county website.
Newspapers around the state, including FLORIDA TODAY, are lobbying against the move, saying publishing legal notices in an independent venue guarantees more transparency and visibility to residents, as well as noting the revenue hit to newspapers.
The amount of the potential cost savings to the county is unknown. Walker said Brevard County paid $79,756.73 to place legal ads in FLORIDA TODAY during the 2021-22 budget year.
Brevard County is contracting with Miami-based Column Software for $24,000 a year to provide a system for publication of the ads on the county website. Column Software also will mail legal notices to residents who request them, at a charge to the county of $1.19 per letter.
The county also hired a staff web content and public notifications specialist in January to monitor the county's websites for consistency, and Walker said a portion of that employee's job will focus on the county's legal notices webpage. Walker said that person has combined salary and benefits of about $76,000 a year, and potentially could spend about 40% of the workweek handling legal notice issues.
The county hopes to eventually recover part of the overall cost if other government entities switch to the county-run site and pay Brevard to post their notices.
Currently, in most Florida counties, public notices are placed in three locations ― a printed newspaper; the newspaper's website such as https://www.floridatoday.com/public-notices; and a searchable Florida Press Association website that aggregates all Florida public notices at https://www.floridapublicnotices.com/
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Jim Fogler, president of the Florida Press Association, a nonprofit corporation representing the state's daily and weekly newspapers, said putting the notices on only a government website would "push government actions further into the shadows and make it less transparent," in addition to making it harder for residents to monitor local governments and hold government officials accountable.
He said the change, if implemented across the state, would result in a county-by-county patchwork of notices around Florida. Fogler said members of the public would have to know to proactively go to their county's website, rather than having the chance to run across the legal notice in their local printed newspaper.
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Walker counters that having the Brevard County notices only on the county website increases transparency because they all will be in one place.
Additionally, under the county's agreement with Column, Walker said, Column also will push the county's legal notices to the searchable Florida Press Association website that aggregates all Florida public notices.
Walker — who has been spearheading the project, working on it since September ― said the county's legal staff is researching which types of legal advertising can be put only on the county website without also placing the ads in a newspaper. Once that's determined, Walker said the county can do so without holding a public hearing or getting County Commission approval, under terms of Florida House Bill 7049, which was approved by the Florida Legislature last year and went into effect Jan. 1.
For other types of legal ads in which current county ordinances require publication in a newspaper, Walker said the County Commission will be asked to consider approving a new county ordinance to do away with that requirement, so the county could use only its own website ― as long as that doesn't violate state statutes.
The first vote ― to provide what's known as "legislative intent" for that ordinance ― is scheduled for March 7. The ordinance also would require a second vote, potentially as early as March 21.
Brevard County already has established a webpage ― https://www.brevardfl.gov/LegalAdsPublicNotices ― where, since Dec. 1, it has simultaneously posted county legal notices, along with having them published in the newspaper.
Walker said Column's software also would allow other government entities to post ads on the county site for a still-to-be-determined fee, including the Brevard School District; Brevard's 16 cities and towns; and the county's charter officers, such as the clerk of courts and tax collector.
Contact Berman at dberman@floridatoday.com, on Twitter at @bydaveberman and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/dave.berman.54.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Brevard to use its own webpage, not newspaper, for some legal notices
