For the past three years, I have been advocating the need to build a better government. The need to establish full transparency between the local government and the public using the latest technology, including internet access. However, I have been quite mindful of how many people actually have internet access in our community.
The Yankee group, a telecommunication consulting group, is estimating the United States has 1 broadband line for very two people, including wireless lines. Countries like Japan, Italy, and Sweden will achieve one broadband line per person in 2009. Right now, the United States may not achieve this tipping point, one broadband line per person, until 2011.
It seems the PA Senate (Senate bill 419) is considering a law that allows the townships to post legal notices on their web sites. This law allows the township to bypass the current requirement to post legal notices in the local papers serving the community.
So, how will this work? The townships will post the legal notice on their web sites and not run the legal notice in the local papers. In our case, the Morning Call and Express-Times will not run the legal notices. Only people with interent access can view the legal notice. If we assume the Lehigh Valley broadband penetration is the same as the national average, then only 50% of the population will have the opportunity to view the legal notice. This is bad!
The second issue is the ability of the townships to maintain a quality web site. Finally, the township will be required to maintain extensive databases to store the legal notices for many years. To be honest, most townships in the Lehigh Valley do not have the ability to maintain high quality web sites and establish robust data storage capabilities. Sad, but true.
In reality, this proposed law restricts the information provided to the general public and is not in the spirit of the new PA Open Records Law. Today, it is just too hard to get information about our community from the local municipalities. This proposed law is bad public policy and will set back open government initiatives many years.
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1 comment:
I understand where you are coming from--advertising legal notices from local municipalities on the internet may lead to an information gap. However, it must be noted that newspaper readership isn't exactly flourishing, and often people choose not to pay the $2 that the New York Times charges for their daily publication, opting to subscribe to the free online edition. The borough of Kutztown estimates that the passing of SB 419 will save local taxpayers an estimated $26,000--$23 million when considering the whole state. My concern wasn't the flow of information because the internet provides an inexpensive medium that 4/5 adults utilize (not to mention the emphasis on web education offered at almost every school), but if the state stands to lose $23 million, how will legislators decide to make up for the budget shortfall?
All options must be considered. It would be a shame to substitute one tax for another simply to fill the void left by the decrease in revenue. I will continue researching this matter--clearly there is more to learn.
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