2025 Regular Session - Day 18 - Amendment for HB 368, Rep. Michael Meredith

thank you Mr Speaker ladies and gentlemen of the house and I appreciate the lady from Shelby considering this a friendly Amendment and bringing the bill overall as she said this the the exemption here for the larger counties has existed for five years now at this point and the sky hasn't fallen um transparency is still being protected however after the Committee hearing we started hearing some concerns uh some from back home some from around the state and house floor M one tries to address those and it does three things the first thing that it does is if there is a special purpose government entity out there who wants to take part in the uh the alternative notice procedures under this legislation and they don't have a website of their own if the local government that created that special purpose government entity the city or the county that created it allows them to they could use the city or the County website to publish those notices that the first thing the amendment does the second thing the amendment does is IT addresses the transparency discussion that I have heard since the since the bill passed committee uh we've heard from newspaper editors around the state that they're worried about what transparency will look like they're worried about the public records being maintained can somebody change a record uh after it's originally created um what this would do is it says if you take advantage of the additional procedures that are allow owed under this bill as as the lady from Shelby mentioned you do still have to have the small advertisement referring to where to get those things but when you send that small advertisement in with it you would also send in the entirety of the document that would have been printed previously and so the newspapers will have full access to the full documentation and I have heard from newspapers that there may be nefarious issues that come up or folks who are not doing the right thing well when they have that document in front of them and it's been delivered directly to them the newspapers will have all the resources they need if there is something nefarious if there is a bad actor they will be able to then make a new story about that issue to inform the public the third and final thing that the amendment does is it creates a a an equity issue relating to the days before a hearing or something that needs to be published because if you have a paper in a County that only has one weekly printing of that newspaper right now there are some statutes that say you can publish 7 to 2 21 days beforehand there are some statutes that still said 7 to 10 days and on that 7 to 10 day beforehand schedule sometimes that gets really tight in those single publication newspaper counties and so this would put the 7 to 21 days in force for all the sections that are left at 7 to 10 the section that governs cities the section that governs counties the section that governs school districts and the section that govern governs special purpose government entities for any of those communities or groups that choose not to use the new alternative standards established under this bill and continue to publish in the newspaper I would be happy to answer any questions on the amendment but that is what it does Mr Speaker ladies and gentlemen of the house and I would move passage of house floor Amendment one to House Bill 368