With last week’s announcement that several newspapers in New Jersey will either be dissolving or discontinuing print editions in the coming months, local governments may encounter increased difficulty complying with the state’s public notice requirements.
Those ending print publication include The Star Ledger, The Times of Trenton, South Jersey Times and the Hunterdon County Democrat. The Jersey Journal will be dissolving entirely. With this announcement, a significant number of New Jersey’s counties, municipalities and boards of education will be unable to comply with various statutory notification requirements. This creates an immediate crisis for local governments to comply with Title 35 of New Jersey law, which concerns legal advertisements, and meet their statutory obligation to select where public notices are published during the annual government reorganization in January.
In response to these developments, the New Jersey School Boards Association has joined with the New Jersey State League of Municipalities and the New Jersey Association of Counties to urge the Legislature to act.
On Thursday, Oct. 31, the three groups sent a joint letter to legislative leadership noting how these changes create an urgent statutory compliance challenge for many New Jersey counties, municipalities, and school boards. To address this issue, the groups called upon the Legislature to swiftly enact legislation that would provide local governing bodies with the opportunity to electronically publish any legally required notices. Such a move would provide counties, municipalities, school boards, authorities and others with the opportunity to comply with the law in a timely, cost effective and efficient manner.
The letter describes how current law requires local officials to publish onerous written information and legal notices in local newspaper publications. For example, every year at each reorganization meeting, municipalities, counties and boards of education are required to designate an official newspaper for publishing public notices such as an annual meeting schedule, bond ordinances, request for bids, sale of public property, proposed and adopted ordinances and zoning changes, just to name a few. Public officials have long decried that publishing these documents in print media is costly, time-consuming and outdated. Moreover, as the newspaper industry has become increasingly digitized and struggled to retain staff, resources and publications, local officials have found it increasingly difficult to comply with notice requirements.
In the letter, the NJSBA and its local government partners specifically requested that Title 35 of the Revised Statutes be supplemented with the following language, in part, as well as amendments made to various sections of the statutory law that would permit local governing bodies to “to electronically publish legal notices on a newspaper’s website or in a newspaper’s digital publication.” NJSBA Executive Director/CEO Dr. Timothy Purnell joined the executive directors of the New Jersey State League of Municipalities and the New Jersey Association of Counties in signing the letter.
Board members are encouraged to reach out to their senator and Assembly members and urge revisions to state law, so local governments remain compliant with all public notice requirements.
