I'm All for Legal Notices Going Digital

There are, I believe, at least eight bills before the Texas legislature this session to remove legal notices from the print media. Rumor has it that someone stands to profit from legal notices being published online only. Of course someone stands to profit. A fiveyear- old could figure that out. It's merely a case of "follow the money." Obviously, the intention (other than to make money in some way by taking money out of the pockets of newspapers) is an attempt to suppress a free press by breaking newspapers financially. An incredibly transparent, but stupid and short-sighted, ploy. Newspapers will survive (andmost likely thrive) despite all political attempts to put them out of business. The headline reads that I am in favor of the e-legals. I find it personally liberating as will other newspapers when they stop to think how much more freedom this will actually give them. There are newspapers (the Advance News isn't one of them) who will try to avoid asking the difficult questions out of concern that a petty politician will take exception to a quote he/she made on the record and retaliate by placing legals with the competition even if it costs taxpayers two or three times as much. (I've seen it happen; it happened to us.) Then there are newspapers that pander (sounds so much better than "suck up", doesn't it?) to public entities to obtain the legal notices or to keep them. We've never had a problem asking the difficult questions. If local politicians want to behave in a petty manner, that is their personality problem, not mine. It would never change how I write or what I write. This opinion piece should make that perfectly clear to all: taxpayer and politician alike. Once legal notices are online only, some newspapers will feel more freedom to write the hard news stories; the freedom to put in as many Public Information Requests as they like; the freedom to REALLY investigate the politicians and all public figures. All with no fear of retaliation because the legal notices are no longer in print. I love the idea of all of the above. In fact, I'm actually looking forward to it. I love research, and it's one of my strongest talents. I'm positive no one has been able to find the unpublished phone number for the Microsoft corporate office actually located in the United States. (All published numbers get you someone in the Phillipines.) Well, I found it. And used it. No, it cannot be found with Google. Readership will increase dramatically for the stories alone. Advertising revenue will increase due to a larger audience since most newspapers are both in print and online. We are a county-wide weekly. Our newspaper is in print as well as online. Point of interest: although we are online, we are receiving more and more calls for copies of our paper IN PRINT. We are in the process of adding more news stands throughout the county in addition to all those we added within the last year. I'm already happily filling notebooks with everything for which I plan to put in as Public Information Requests. So far, I have three notebooks started with names and the information I'm planning to request. Those three notebooks are just for our county alone. (These PIRs will be put in regardless of how the legislators vote, but I won't have to worry about retaliation. Retaliation makes a good story to write as well. I've never worried about retaliation; I've just never had anything pique my interest enough to write about it....until recent local and state politics caught my attention. I'm thrilled!!!! When not typing, I'm sitting here with a huge grin on my face and rubbing my hands with glee over the endless possibilities.) I plan to start a fourth notebook just for the Texas Municipal League alone now that they have caught my laserlike focus. They are worthy of investigation because now I wonder what they stand to gain. The TML presents the argument that placing legal notices online only will save the taxpayers money. Au contraire!!! Public entities will just spend the taxpayer "savings" on something they consider "more important".......large salary increases, trips out of their own taxpayer districts for "retreats," etc. Thus, the money they claim they are "saving" local taxpayers will be spent in locations such as San Antonio, South Padre Island, Las Vegas, Austin, etc. Well, you get the picture. This is something that has been happening for years. Politicians will just have more of your "saved" tax dollars to spend in other locations that will not benefit you, the taxpayer. The tax collected on that extra round (or three) of drinks will put your tax dollars into tax coffers totally out of your area. And why are they using your tax dollars for drinks in the first place?! Has everyone except for me forgotten how the state lottery was supposed to fund public education? That is precisely how it was "sold" to the public. Didn't turn out that way, now did it. So who's getting all that lottery money???? Note to myself: start notebook for research on the Texas legislators. Possible notebook per legislator necessary. Start with the legislators who introduced this particular piece of legislation. Or send them flowers. Hmmm.....decisions, decisions! Note to our readers: look for some very exciting stories in the future. I do love to write (obvious from the length of this editorial) as much as I love to do research! My dad always told me I should write more for the paper. I only wrote editorials for our newspaper when something really caught my interest and attention. Now I will have so many interesting editorials to write about our public figures and politicians because they have quite recently definitely caught my interest and attention. And I'm relentless when doing research. A recent ad brought to light something that had never occurred to me. So look for follow-up stories connected to that ad. I've already started a research notebook on that one. This reminds me of those connect-the-dots puzzles. Connect all those dots and voila! you have the complete picture. THE DOWNSIDE FOR PUBLIC ENTITIES AND E-LEGALS (BUT NOT FOR NEWSPAPERS) I'm sorry to say (Let's be honest. I'm not really sorry to say it.) there are, however, a few problems, unfortunately, with online-only legals. One problem is that the web site will be "down due to maintenance." I've run into this problem with public web sites more times than I can count. It happened just last week with one of Hidalgo County's web sites. I'm in the middle of some research when suddenly the site is "down for maintenance." That has happened quite frequently. Another example: in the 2014 Hidalgo County primary elections, because there was no paper-ballot trail (the county had switched to an all-electronic voting process), several losing candidates challenged the election results. This one incident alone cost taxpayers approximately $100,000 to hire an independent IT auditor to validate the outcome. The monies came from “seized gambling funds” at the DA’s office, but you get the point. Could those monies have been better used for county needs? No doubt. (Remember: the county wants a new courthouse and needs the money to build it.) If there had been a paper trail, the question would never would have arisen. Ah, the joys of electronics and how electronic technology is consistent in its many failures. A second problem is a really huge problem. Cybersabotaging (my own word so don't even think about "stealing" it without giving me credit) has been increasing. I don't know how they do it (I have trouble getting into my own personal accounts occasionally), but somehow these people manage to hack into some supposedly completely secure web sites. This is occurring on an ever increasing basis. A third problem is that any public entity may post a legal, later (hours or days) notice a mistake, and correct the legal notice on their web site. We have received calls on several separate occasions from cities needing to correct a mistake they made just as our newspaper is about to roll through the presses. Thankfully, we were able to accommodate the cities BEFORE the paper was printed. They had sent in the legal notices days before, but didn't catch the mistake until it was almost too late. If these had been online-only legals, they would have been posted before the mistake was noticed. This proves my point about legal notices being posted online, then changed (corrected) more than a day after being posted. It will happen! The above paragraph means you legislators will need to add criminal charges to be filed against any city, county, etc. that changes an e-legal after it has been posted online. What will the cost (in "saved" tax dollars) be to taxpayers to pay a firm to monitor legals from the entire state? The cost will no doubt exceed the "saved" taxpayer dollars. Told you someone stands to gain financially. No doubt such a firm will have contributed campaign dollars to one of the eight legislators who placed these eight bills up for vote this session. Perhaps the firm will be owned by a relative (or relatives) or one or more of these eight legislators. That's how it appears to work here in Hidalgo County. I also wonder how exactly will those interested know precisely when to check web sites for new legals. Do they sit in front of their computer staring at the monitor 24/7/365 going from web site to web site? Those who have viewed the first posted legal will have no idea they need to recheck it for accuracy. They run the risk of submitting an untimely or erroneous bid (or whatever) based on information that was later changed without their knowledge. Unless they print out the online legal (which I suggest they do), they will never be able to prove another legalwas posted then later changed.  I suggested the legal notice be printed out as a hard copy because hard copies are always best. Ironically, that places the legal right back "in print." So, public entity and vendor are right back where they started.......a legal IN PRINT. (Remember to keep plenty of paper and printer ink in stock. Vendors will be spending more money on those items.) Seems to defeat the purpose of online to me, but that isn't my problem, thank goodness. I know the third problem listed above is quite likely to happen due to the fact that several years ago a city made a mistake on a legal they published with us. The mistake was their mistake, but they asked if we could print extra papers with the corrected legal. No, we could not. No, we would not! That edition was already printed and out the door. To have reprinted the quantity they requested may or may not have been illegal (in my mind, it was), but it was certainly unethical. We did not print additional copies of that week's issue. A fourth problem will be someone either being unable to access the internet, or their internet service is down for whatever reason. Hurricanes, earthquakes, tornados, blizzards, sun spots, terrorist attacks; the possibilities are endless. Worst of all (gasp!), computers are notorious for crashing at the most inopportune time. The computer then has to be repaired (takes days while missing out on those online legals) or replaced (expensive) followed by recovery of the backed up data. (Good luck with that one if you're using Windows 8 or 8.1. Microsoft has removed the Backup/Restore capability. This was the reason for my deep research for their unpublished phone number.) All time consuming when time is of the essence with those online only legal notices. Please keep in mind that printers and monitors quit working as well. It might be wise to keep a spare printer and monitor handy.........just in case. Right here, some of you are thinking I could have those same problems with the internet and computer equipment. You would be absolutely correct. However, time is on my side; something that isn't true concerning legal notices. I also remember how to use a telephone for those of you who may have forgotten their use. In spite of all the problems listed above concerning the viability of internet only legal notices, I'm still all for it for the reasons I stated. It's obvious that I stand to gain something from this. At least, I'm willing to admit it, unlike certain other people/ entities. The problems the public entities and anyone needing access to so many different web sites isn't my problem; it's all theirs. While they are all having problems, I fully intend to have enormous fun. I'm very excited about all the opportunities this presents to all newspapers everywhere. In conclusion, I have this to say to newspapers all over the state of Texas. See this as the opportunity it is. Those opposed to legal notices being in print feel they have something to gain. What they did not take into consideration is the fact that newspapers have something more to gain. I will be happy to work with any weekly newspaper needing access to databases that are not easy to find. I've amassed an enormous number of information databases over the last several years. Having a private investigator's license will be very helpful, as well. Private investigators have access to databases the general public does not have. This is win-win for newspapers! Carpe diem!!! End Note: BTW, has no one considered the considerable TAXPAYER expense to develop the software necessary to coordinate legal notices from every city in the entire state of Texas? I repeat.......follow the money!!!!! A superficial bit of research into the Texas Municipal League raised my eyebrows and caused me to speculate about how much money they stand to make from this. Nothing in the light (for now) research into the TML gave me any reason to believe this entity is altruistic or has the taxpayers' best interests at heart. At this point, this is all speculation on my part. I can't wait to see what I find when delving considerably more deeply into the Texas Municipal League. They really have caught my intense interest!!!