In 1947, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill uttered the following\u00a0oft-quoted\u00a0words to the House of Commons:\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The same idea could be applied to\u00a0public notice.\u00a0For centuries, societies have given public notice in\u00a0various ways\u2014from a piece of paper posted in the public square to posting information on social media\u2014and for centuries,\u00a0people have complained that they never know enough about what their government is doing.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Become A Member<\/p>\n
Mainstreet does not have a paywall, but pavement-pounding journalism is not free. Join your neighbors who make this vital work possible.<\/p>\n
Change is bound to happen, but the key question is: Are we moving in the right direction?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
New\u00a0joint\u00a0research<\/a>\u00a0from Yale, Texas A&M and\u00a0the\u00a0University of Chicago\u00a0indicates\u00a0the answer\u00a0is\u00a0\u201cno\u201d\u00a0in Florida.\u00a0<\/p>\n First, a\u00a0quick refresher:\u00a0Up until 2022, the state\u00a0required\u00a0public notices\u2014ranging from government\u00a0business\u00a0and bidding to\u00a0home\u00a0foreclosures\u2014to run in\u00a0a print newspaper, on that\u00a0outlet\u2019s\u00a0website, and at the statewide repository site, floridapublicnotices.com.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2022, Florida became the first state to pass\u00a0legislation\u00a0removing\u00a0the longstanding requirement that public notices appear in\u00a0print, allowing counties\u2014if they choose\u2014to\u00a0designate\u00a0a website where government notices can\u00a0be\u00a0published.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2023, Alachua County was one of the first counties to\u00a0take advantage of this law.\u00a0The Alachua County Commission\u00a0unanimously\u00a0voted to pull county notices<\/a>\u00a0from where they had always run, the Gainesville Sun, and put them\u00a0instead\u00a0on the county website\u00a0and social media.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n At the time, commissioners said they wanted to take the savings and use them to take out ads that would promote where notices could be found. That never\u00a0occurred.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Speaking to commissioners before the vote,\u00a0Assistant County Manager Tommy Crosby touted the county website\u2019s 1.2 million visitors over the\u00a0previous\u00a0six months, but that\u00a0would\u00a0translate to just\u00a0492 average page views per month in the website\u2019s first year of operation<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n According to new data obtained in a public records request, the\u00a0Alachua County\u00a0site averaged 307 users per month\u00a0over the last 10 months.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n As it turns out, this is not unusual.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe find no change in the website traffic of county public notice websites after the reform, consistent with the argument that citizens are unlikely to access notices on government websites,\u201d\u00a0Yale, Texas A&M and University of Chicago researchers reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n Supporters of the\u00a0county\u00a0website\u00a0option\u00a0will argue that with social media and other efforts,\u00a0there are\u00a0actually\u00a0more\u00a0people\u00a0informed now than ever.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n If that were true, we could expect to see increased engagement, but\u00a0that\u2019s not what\u00a0researchers found:\u00a0\u201cConsistent with a decline in participation, we find that public meetings held in affected governments experienced a 16% decrease in the number of speakers after the reform.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n As it turns out,\u00a0developers have been\u00a0among the\u00a0biggest beneficiaries.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cConsistent with the decline in newspaper notices of planning and zoning meetings reducing activism against new construction, we find a 35% increase in the number of commercial zoning permits in affected cities after the reform,\u201d the report said. \u201cOverall, our results suggest that revoking the requirement to publish newspaper notices removes information about local government activities, which reduces citizen engagement.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Voters understand this:\u00a0A 2025 Mason-Dixon poll found that 92% of registered voters in Florida believe local governments should\u00a0be required\u00a0to publish notices through a printed and online newspaper and on floridapublicnotices.com.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s\u00a0not a perfect system, but as researchers note, it\u00a0remains\u00a0valuable:\u00a0\u201cOur findings suggest that newspaper notices are (still) relevant disclosures that help local constituents engage with their governments.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It so happens\u00a0this is\u00a0Sunshine Week<\/a>, a nonpartisan collaboration\u00a0coordinated by\u00a0the Brechner Freedom of Information Project<\/a>\u00a0at UF\u2019s College of Journalism and Communications, which aims\u00a0to\u00a0shine a light on the importance of public records and open government.\u00a0<\/p>\n If you\u00a0think Alachua County can and should do better,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0a perfect time to let your\u00a0county\u00a0commissioners know.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1947, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill uttered the following\u00a0oft-quoted\u00a0words to the House of Commons:\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cIt has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-194853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}