URGENT CALL TO ACTION: Will Rep. Neighbors Vote Against Transparency?

Allyson Dix
Jobe Publishing Inc.

Transparency of our government should be at the forefront of every single elected official’s business. When any elected official seeks to hinder easy access to its business, it is a red flag, and those red flags are waving here in Cumberland County.

State Representative Amy Neighbors voted in favor of House Bill 368 on February 20 in the House Local Government Committee, a committee she serves on as Vice Chair. While I’ve yet to hear a response from Neighbors after contacting her with my concerns as both a constituent and an employee of a newspaper, her support of this bill has helped advance it to a full House vote as early as February 26.

Neighbors said in an email to Jobe Publishing, Inc. that her support of such a bill would keep her districts and other local government entities from being “forced”to pay for legal advertising in her community’s newspapers, some of our oldest businesses in the state, despite it being your tax dollars that pay for that information.

HB 368 is designed to strip away a state mandate that requires local governments to publish advertising in local newspapers in areas with less than a population of 80,000, allowing them to post things such as public notices, surplus actions, filed ordinances, and other business items onto their government-run websites. This population reference is law because large cities have low cost internet providers and easily-attained, free WiFi.

In Cumberland County and other Jobe Publishing counties, many of our readers lack access to the internet, especially our older generations, nor do they have the time it takes to search every website ran by school districts, councils, commissions, boards, committees, etc.

Local newspapers strive to keep readers informed in their communities. It is a place they have come to rely on to find community happenings and government transparencies, which can sometimes come in the form of legal advertisements.

Supporters of this bill are out of touch with their small community constituents.

Does Amy Neighbors believe in these small communities she is elected to serve that all people are able to access the internet, especially given that Cumberland County has 28% of its population who live at or under the poverty level?

Do these people not matter? It’s much cheaper for a subscription or a 75-cent pick up at the local gas station than a monthly internet service of over $60 per month.

Does Amy Neighbors believe her older constituents are able to navigate the internet like the younger generations can? According to a Coda Ventures study, 70% of ages 18-24 read their local news to stay informed. In contrast, those numbers reach 80% and above for ages 40 through 75 and older.

Many of our older populations are very competent folks but have no desire to learn how to navigate the internet or no service to do so at all.

This bill also creates unreasonable barriers for your local newspapers’ abilities to help keep our government accountable and transparent, and creates a barrier for the constitutionally-protected right of Freedom of the Press; I would be hard-pressed to find someone who can dedicate the hours and hours of trying to keep up on a daily basis as would other small community newspapers.

In a time where mistrust of government is at record levels, the passage of this bill would further deepen that mistrust between elected officials, newspapers, and constituents in the communities they live.

It’s YOUR tax dollars that are paying for newspapers to print legal advertisements from local government, and while legal ads are not a significant amount of revenue for Jobe Publishing, it is certainly a source of valuable income for small, independent publishers.

Newspaper publishers were not invited to the table from the misguided representatives regarding this legislation, and they may not even know how this mandate could affect many communities. That’s why it’s critical to contact your state representative without delay.

If this law goes away like the Kentucky League of Cities is fighting to do, sooner or later, an unethical official will realize the public is not watching and corruption will once again become more prevalent. Jobe Publishing newspapers have uncovered many corrupt practices from elected officials, and some of those have come from the current state mandate for local governments to print legal advertisements.

What they fail to make known is that newspaper industries with paid subscribers are the only media with a quantifiable audited reach. They also fail to explain the mandate to be a paid newspaper with the USPS is to have a local office.

If this law goes away, there is no reason for 50 to 60 small community newspapers to keep an open office in small town Kentucky.

While the federal government and other states are working on incentives for these newspapers that are over 100 years old, our representatives are turning their backs on the legacy left from their predecessors, tax payers, and our oldest, ongoing businesses.

It is our hope that Amy Neighbors and neighboring representatives Rebecca Raymer and Michael Meredith will reconsider and honor the legacy of transparency left to them by the senators and representatives before them.

You can contact Representative Amy Neighbors at amy.neighbors@kylegislature.gov or by calling the hotline 502-564-8100 to leave a message for Neighbors, or any other state representative.

You can also access contact information for your representatives at https://legislature.ky.gov/Pages/contactus.aspx.

Allyson Dix is the Managing Editor for Jobe Publishing, Inc.’s Barren County Progress and Reporter for Edmonton-Herald News.