The bill was harshly criticized by the state's print media concerns. It was criticized by national media as well. Scare tactics and ominous talking points. And yet it passed.
Meanwhile, the BCC has already begun publishing most public notices on a lower priced print newspaper not affiliated with the Pensacola News Journal. There are some legal hurdles the county will have to navigate in order to fully integrate notices on our website--but that is a direction I certainly want to go.
It will save the county taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And my perspective is this--in many instances the local paper has been biased, unfair, and frankly unprofessional and dishonest in how they cover the BCC and individual members of the board with whom they ideologically disagree. That's been my personal experience with this paper, their string of editors, and their racist, now former cartoonist. So why would we feed taxpayer revenue to an entity that is so hostile toward us?
Answer (in my opinion) : We shouldn't. And for my vote, I WON'T.
I am going to work that direction for the savings it will produce for the taxpayers--- to boot.
Now, this savings (not paying media conglomerates hefty fees for publication of routine public notices) from Escambia County alone may be insignificant to giant corporate players like Gannett--but if more Florida governments follow HB 7049 and publish public notices on their own respective, organic websites----that amount of a revenue loss for media interests will not escape notice.
Thus, the letter the BCC received yesterday, below.
