We trust the government? – Bridge pioneer Vali

By Joshua Wood, Saratoga Sun

Who will watch the guards?

If some members of our Wyoming lawmaker make their way, the House Bill 298 will ensure that the guard will look at himself.

If you are reading this, then you are one of more than 400,000 Wyoming residents who read your local newspaper either in print or online. It is likely that you are also part of 78%who read public notifications in the local newspaper or 68%, who believe that state and local authorities should be required to publish public notifications in newspapers as a community service.

For more than a century, Wyoming newspapers have published public notifications in a way that makes them most affordable to you, the public. Meeting protocols, changes in the area, speed increase and others are published in newspapers available for reading newspapers, schools, local libraries and senior centers.

This accessibility gives the residents of Wyoming more than the necessary notice, this gives them the power to advocate for themselves.

In camp, community members successfully organized efforts in 2018 to oppose the construction of a cell tower after a public notice published in Saratoga Sun.

In Laram County, residents have successfully filed a lawsuit against Anadarko Petroleum Corporation – and her mother company Occidental Petroleum Corporation – over mineral rights. Residents have noted the importance of public notifications regarding the individual rights of minerals. Public notifications on leasing contracts submitted by Anadarko have warned many stakeholders and gave them evidence to protect their mineral rights.

You can just read your paper every week. There was a list of APD (advanced planning notice) submitted by Anadarko to the Gas and Oil Commission and the classified thing on the back. If you look, if you know your legal entities, you could watch them march through the county, blocking everything.

Most importantly, after public news published in local newspapers on the proposed increase in the percentage of Rocky Mountain Power, Wyoming residents appeared at public meetings. This has led to the fact that the Public Service Commission reviews the proposal and reduced the total amount of the increase in the rate.

More importantly, public notifications are archived by your local newspaper and in the state archives of Wyoming, thus providing a vital, constant record.

In Byron, for example, Mayor Pam Hopkinson had to find a public notice published in 2012 on the sale of an old school building. The city of Byron had no copy of the notice in his files, but can easily be found in the archives of the Lovel Chronicle.

Bill 298 of the house will cancel all this.

This bill, introduced late in the legislative session, intends to create a centralized electronic notice system maintained by the civil service. In short, the government will monitor the government. This should be enough reason for everyone to oppose this bill, but there are additional reasons to express your opposition.

Initially, the centralized electronic notifications system has already been created by the Wyoming Press Association, which represents all legal newspapers in the country. Daily and weekly newspapers in Wyoming uploading public notifications to this website – which is freely accessible to Wyoming people – to guarantee the most revenge for the inhabitants of our great country. This online and mobile website is easily searched with a municipality, district, publication and date.

Why spend taxpayer money to reproduce something to which the private industry is already addressed?

Speaking of taxpayers money, the fiscal note on this bill dramatically underestimates the cost of maintaining a centralized electronic depository.

To build the system, the Secretary of State estimates between $ 175,000 and $ 225,000 everywhere. What the fiscal note does not include is the additional cost of maintaining this website along with security to ensure that it has not been attacked by bad participants.

This does not take into account IT costs and equipment or marketing costs on the Wyoming residents website who know they can find public notifications in their local newspaper.

Finally, let’s talk about accountability.

According to the Chamber’s bill 298, the civil service will provide evidence of the publication of other state entities or natural persons, with another example of the government being his own inspection of the regulator. The newspapers are already providing this verification, issuing a sworn declarations for publication for any public notice published on our pages. By becoming strictly digital and trusting the government to regulate, potential bad participants can change digital notifications. Printed in newspapers, these notifications cannot be changed.

As Governor Mark Gordon once said, “This constant record that cannot be changed is very important.”

If you, like us, believe that the government should not serve as a government observer, then contact your representatives and senators in Wyoming’s legislation today. Tell them that you want public notifications to remain with an independent third party with professional minimum standards: your local newspaper.

Joshua Wood is the operating director of Stevenson’s newspapers and president of the Board of Directors of the Wioming Press Association.