BY JIM DOOLEY – Hawaii’s newspapers will continue collecting some $1 million for at least another year to print government legal notices, according to the state’s Chief Information Officer.
Bills to allow electronic publication of such ads and notices are pending before the state Senate and House of Representatives.
The House Finance Committee voted to defer one measure following testimony from Sanjeev
“Sonny” Bhagowalia, Chief Information Officer in Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s administration.
“I think I’m saying provide a one-year hiatus so that … everyone’s given one year to set up our site, one year (of) continuing with the way we do business,” Bhagowalia told the committee.
After that, he said, legal ads can migrate to a state-operated website.
“We will always have some portion that will be reserved for print media,” said Bhagowalia. “And that will continue and I think that we can reach some sort of agreement on that.”
But electronic publication is coming, he said.
“Maybe the world has changed and has now gone (to the) internet so it’s time to change or be changed,” he said.
Newspaper publishers have opposed the idea, saying print media are reliable, readily accessible venues for the ads.
Honolulu Star Advertiser executives told lawmakers last week their publication, the sole remaining general circulation newspaper in Honolulu, bills the state $890,000 annually for legal ads.
The ad revenues jumped substantially after two newspapers, the Honolulu Advertiser and Honolulu Star Bulletin merged in 2010 and higher rates began to be assessed.
Star Advertiser senior vice president Dave Kennedy called the $890,000 figure “a very small proportion of our overall revenue.”
He said money wasn’t the most important issue.
“The bottom-line issue here isn’t about revenue for us; it’s about public access and the public’s right to know. That’s something we in the news business take very seriously,” Kennedy testified.
I wholeheartedly agree, “…it’s about public access and the public’s right to know. That’s something we in the news business take very seriously,” Kennedy testified.” It is something, after having been homeless, without a computer handy, the STATE should also take very seriously, setting up the adequate access services for technology access for all homeless citizens to gain access to the necessary information almost and very nearly 24hours a day that will be taking the place of the newspaper stand on the corner. Without this access to the Government notice, the PEOPLE’S BUSINESS while homeless, cannot continue. It is in this light, the sunshine laws of the STATE may be broken and socially oppressive! The very Citizens that rely on full access to Government, necessary to having a voice, regardless the voice may be the last of ownership material the citizen has to avow a case or plea about Government acts, that material will be usurped without proper notification of Government Notice of acts intent on the citizen, without ads in all forms being generated.
And, what of the ADA and Federal Law mandating a policy whereby the disabled have the right to information in a accessible format? If that format is newsprint, what gives?
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