The Village Council has given preliminary approval to ending the practice of placing legal notices in local newspapers, a step that will save tens of thousands of dollars but may also make it harder for some less tech-savvy residents to see them. Instead, the Village plans to transition to a county-operated website that costs almost nothing.
The notices inform the public of items like elections, zoning changes, and even when the names of streets are being changed. Up until now, the Village placed the notices in The Miami Herald and the Islander News. Last year, the Village spent $11,455 worth of ads in the Islander and $42,838 in the Herald, according to a public records request.
The Village does not regularly advertise in the Key Biscayne Independent.
The new system will place the ads on Miami-Dade’s Public Notice Site, where the Village will join Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Doral, and several other municipalities.
But the end of print ads may not have fans everywhere. First, residents who’ve come to expect to see the ads in the paper will now have to visit a site to see them, although there is a system to get them delivered by email.
And, the loss of income is just another hit in a long list of revenue challenges for community newspapers, which continue to disappear and downsize across the U.S., limiting their ability to hold municipalities accountable.
Islander News Publisher Justo Rey said the paper is “closely monitoring the Village Council’s actions on this ordinance” but declined further comment.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has often been critical of the media, signed a bill that allowed governments to move their legal ads to County-operated sites. A generation ago, legal notices generated 5 to 10% of revenue for local newspapers, according to the National Newspaper Association.
As the Village is preparing to end placing legal ads, it’s been ramping up spending on communications consultants and public relations firms, using them for “Big Dig” projects and even how to manage communications after the Oscar Olea sex case broke. To further control the messaging, Village manager, Steve Williamson, established a gag order on Village employees that could subject them to discipline if they speak to the news media.
Still, Council Member Frank Caplan, who once served as publisher of the now defunct Key News, said the idea to end legal ads was “an excellent thing to do,” adding that the Village can also put the link on its own site in addition to the County’s page.
“We’re now defining a new definition of what ‘publish’ means,” Caplain said.
This story was originally published in the Key Biscayne Independent, a WLRN News partner.
