Manager's Message

Use of Electronic Notices- Beneficial to All

Many citizens are probably aware that the Town has a Bill pending in the North Carolina General Assembly, (HB 710). The Bill would authorize the Town of Clayton to utilize electronic media (the Internet, Government Access Television) in place of print media for placement of legal notices regarding formal public hearings. The idea is not new and Clayton would become one of several jurisdictions with this authority. The proposal works well for the Town and citizens by saving money, assuring that legal ads are actually published in the prescribed timeframe, and by reaching more people through diverse media consistent with modern day trends and habits.

The local print media has taken exception with the proposal and questioned the Town’s motives in pursuing the legislation. Town cost for print media advertising ranges from about $5,000 in a slow growth year to about $8,000 in a higher growth year. Much of the advertising relates to land use cases. Legal ads must be presented to the public in a very narrowly defined timeframe, first appearing at least fifteen but not more than twenty-five days in advance of the hearing and appearing for two consecutive weeks. In submitting legal ads to the print media the Town must coordinate with their deadlines to meet the legal requirements prescribed by the law. We must then depend upon the local print media to actually run the advertisements on the dates that we have prescribed. Quite frankly, they do not always get it right. When they fail to meet the prescribed advertisement dates we are faced with making additional, emergency advertisements in a daily paper at a much higher cost or we must delay the hearing for a month which needlessly delays the applicant. Simply stated, we are responsible for seeing to it that the legal advertisement runs, but actually doing so is out of our control. By shifting our legal advertisements from the print media to the internet and the Government Access channel we then have the ability to ensure the notices reach the citizens in a timely fashion.

An additional consideration for why the Town should receive this authority is that times are tough, financially speaking. The $5,000 to $8,000 that we are spending to place legal ads in the print media represents money that is unavailable to compensate law enforcement or to provide quality recreation programming, or to fix that pothole in front of your house. I can easily state that I hear from the public to “save tax dollars” on a frequent basis, but I do not hear the public say to run more legal ads in the newspaper. The public does; however, say they want to be kept better informed, and we are doing that through our web site, our newsletter, and through Government Access Television.

The Town web site is updated on a daily basis. In fact, the local print and broadcast media tell me that they use our site to track Town activities. The site is attractive, relevant, and user friendly. In addition we have recently added a Government Access Channel, TWC Channel 11, to our menu of options available to citizens who want to keep well informed about Town events. The Bill stipulates that in order to meet the public notice requirements we must use both the Internet (Town web site) and broadcast media (Government Access TV, Channel 11.) When we utilize these means to inform the public we convey the exact same, legally prescribed, information that is contained in a print ad, but we do so at no additional cost to the tax payers and based on consistently meeting the prescribed deadlines.

The proposed Bill does not represent some clandestine conspiracy to withhold information from the public. It is a reflection of changing times and an opportunity to take advantage of technology to make a process less complicated, more affordable, and more accessible to the public. That actually seems like good government.