Sarasota County to stop posting many of its public notices in local newspapers
Sarasota County will no longer publish all of its legal advertisements, including those about hearings where the public can speak on new developments and rezonings, in local newspapers, as county commissioners eliminated that mandate on Wednesday.
The county has for decades posted notices in the Herald-Tribune and other newspapers to alert residents about certain upcoming public hearings. The county will soon start posting many of these notices on its own website instead of in news outlets.
County staff argued at Wednesday’s County Commission meeting that performing the service in-house will save the county money. Leaders of local newspapers, meanwhile, opposed the proposal and contended that their publications have a wider reach than the county website.
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The Florida Legislature passed a bill last spring allowing local governments to publish notices on government websites instead of in local newspapers. Sarasota County had to pass its own ordinance to be able to implement this change.
The county's plan, approved by commissioners in a unanimous vote, applies to public hearing notifications, including those for developments, such as rezonings, special exceptions and growth plan amendments.
Matt Osterhoudt, the director of the county's Planning and Development Services Department, said the county spent over $200,000 a year, on average, on legal advertisements over a five-year period. He said the number would be “easily less” if the county manages the legal ads itself.
Sarasota County has hired a full-time employee to run the legal ad program. The cost of the staff member and related job tools and equipment is approximately $80,000, according to county staff.
Public hearing notices for budget amendments will still be published in newspapers, as doing so is still required under state law. And notices from the county’s constitutional officers, including the Clerk of the Circuit Court’s notices of application for tax deed, will continue to be posted in newspapers.
The president of the Florida Press Association and representatives of two local newspapers spoke in opposition of the plan. They argued that Sarasota area news outlets have a larger audience than the county’s website.
FPA president Jim Fogler noted that allowing the county to post the notices would create a conflict of interest.
“I want to just share that we believe that there’s definitely a transparency issue there,” he said.
Osterhoudt said the county will be transparent and will efficiently correct errors in legal advertisements if they arise.
Chris Johnson, a spokesman for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, said that the newspaper's readers have trusted the Herald-Tribune for news and important information, including public notices, for almost 100 years.
"Citizens expect this information to be where it can be seen by a broad, informed audience, not hidden on a government website," Johnson said. "While this decision by the Sarasota County Commission will cause confusion and result in notices being missed by citizens, we will continue to be a source for these important advertisements."
County staff anticipate that the webpage for public notices (scgov.net/publicnotices) will launch at the end of January. Ads are anticipated to post in February.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota County to stop posting some public notices in newspapers
