The City of Apalachicola will hold its final public hearing to adopt its annual operating budget for Fiscal Year 2008-2009. Staff has rescheduled the hearing for our regular meeting Tuesday, Nov. 4 at 6:00 PM, at City Hall, 1 Bay Avenue, in Apalachicola.
Yes, you read it right!
There has been an ongoing problem with getting the City of Apalachicola’s legal advertisements published by the Apalachicola Times in a timely manner.
The problem first surfaced back in July when the city’s planning and zoning board (faced with a room full of concerned residents) had to reschedule a public hearing, because the legal notice advertising the hearing did not appear in the Times.
Afterwards, a call to then Times advertising director Ron Isbell, revealed that city staff at times submitted the notices after the papers Friday’s deadline. The paper would then try with or without success to run the ads. However, I was guaranteed 100% likelihood that if all future ads were submitted on or before the deadline, the ads would run in the next edition of the Times.
That didn’t happen here!
The Times mishandled the city’s legal advertisement-notifying residents of the Sept. 23, budget’s final public hearing. As a result, the Florida Department of Revenue has found the City of Apalachicola to be in non-compliance with TRIM statues 200.065, F.S. and has ordered the re-advertisement and rescheduling of the budget’s final public hearing for the city to become compliant with the statue.
During that Sept. 23 hearing, I wondered why only three people bothered to show up, especially given current economic conditions.
At our upcoming Nov. 4 meeting, I will recommend that City commissioners start immediately investigating other avenues or media outlets to advertise the city’s legal notices.
Given the age of the internet, perhaps we could petition our State Legislators to introduce a bill allowing local government to use their websites to post legal advertisements. This would not only ensure that all legal notices are advertised in a timely manner but it would also be cost effective.
The City of Apalachicola could arguably demonstrate that our website qualifies as a means of general circulation as it receives approximately 13,000 hits per month.
I know that the first argument would be, not everyone has a computer or access to the internet. My answer to that is, everyone has access to a newspaper, but not everyone reads the newspaper.
Anyway, to review the documents received from both the Department of Revenue and the Apalachicola Times concerning this matter, CLICK HERE.
Yes, you read it right!
There has been an ongoing problem with getting the City of Apalachicola’s legal advertisements published by the Apalachicola Times in a timely manner.
The problem first surfaced back in July when the city’s planning and zoning board (faced with a room full of concerned residents) had to reschedule a public hearing, because the legal notice advertising the hearing did not appear in the Times.
Afterwards, a call to then Times advertising director Ron Isbell, revealed that city staff at times submitted the notices after the papers Friday’s deadline. The paper would then try with or without success to run the ads. However, I was guaranteed 100% likelihood that if all future ads were submitted on or before the deadline, the ads would run in the next edition of the Times.
That didn’t happen here!
The Times mishandled the city’s legal advertisement-notifying residents of the Sept. 23, budget’s final public hearing. As a result, the Florida Department of Revenue has found the City of Apalachicola to be in non-compliance with TRIM statues 200.065, F.S. and has ordered the re-advertisement and rescheduling of the budget’s final public hearing for the city to become compliant with the statue.
During that Sept. 23 hearing, I wondered why only three people bothered to show up, especially given current economic conditions.
At our upcoming Nov. 4 meeting, I will recommend that City commissioners start immediately investigating other avenues or media outlets to advertise the city’s legal notices.
Given the age of the internet, perhaps we could petition our State Legislators to introduce a bill allowing local government to use their websites to post legal advertisements. This would not only ensure that all legal notices are advertised in a timely manner but it would also be cost effective.
The City of Apalachicola could arguably demonstrate that our website qualifies as a means of general circulation as it receives approximately 13,000 hits per month.
I know that the first argument would be, not everyone has a computer or access to the internet. My answer to that is, everyone has access to a newspaper, but not everyone reads the newspaper.
Anyway, to review the documents received from both the Department of Revenue and the Apalachicola Times concerning this matter, CLICK HERE.
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