This week is one of those weeks where several pages in the back of The SUN are filled with public notices.
For many, it may be easy to disregard this part of the newspaper as boring or not useful and to think you should just flip through those and move onto the puzzles and games in The PREVIEW.
But the public notices are far from that, and while the puzzles are also great, the notices are not something that should just be skipped.
Public notices are a vital part of governmental transparency and being able to monitor local governments.
Like this week, it’s a place where you can often see how our county, for example, is spending its funds on a monthly basis. This is where you can see how your tax dollars are being spent.
It’s a place where, if you’re interested in running for office with a governmental entity or special district, you’ll find information on filing to run.
As fiscal years for governmental entities and special districts draw to a close, it’s where you’ll find announcements of how, when and where you can view draft budgets and comment on them.
When there are land use proposals, you’ll find notices of when and where you can attend meetings and learn more about those projects, or what projects bids are being sought on.
The notices also show some court happenings.
And the list goes on.
But it isn’t just about what’s included in the public notices that’s important. It’s why they’re there and why efforts take place across the country regularly to maintain the publishing of public notices in print and at the local level.
As we state often near that portion of the paper, public notices are your right to know.
As the Public Notices Resource Center states, “Public notices allow citizens to serve as watchdogs for fraud and incompetence by both government officials and private interests. Each year, examples of government fraud are discovered by everyday citizens who read their public notices. When government officials try to hide damaging information by ignoring public notice rules, citizens and community newspapers often force the proper notice to be published.”
You can see if our tax dollars are being wasted.
You can see who is doing business in our community.
“Further,” the Public Notices Resource Center adds, “through public notices, citizens are given the opportunity to make their voices heard in public hearings and meetings. Citizens across the nation have used public notices and public hearings to object to changes in their community that could depress property values or alter the fabric of the area. Similarly, citizens have been able to participate in changes that enhance their communities, such as the construction of parks and other improvements. Allowing the public to influence the governing bodies of their local communities is crucial to the functioning of democratic society.”
We encourage everyone to keep an eye on the public notices. We’re not promising it will be the most entertaining reading you’ll do, but we know it can, at times, be some of the most important.
Randi Pierce
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