Deferring state requirements to meet growth, shorelines and stormwater management mandates would save cities and counties untold amounts of money, legislators learned Thursday (Feb. 3), at a hearing before the Senate Government Operatons, Tribal Relations and Elections Committee.
Further, eliminating the requirement for municipalities to publish their public notices in newspapers, and instead allowing them to post such notices to their respective websites as an alternative means to keep the public informed about meetings and planned actions, would save additional dollars, supporters of a bill to ease all of these mandates claim.
relaxing several regulatory requirements, was met with resistance from advocates of open government, growth, shoreline and stormwter management programs.
The details of the bill, SB 5360, would allow local governments to reduce operating costs and increase their revenue stream without new taxes by deferring state required actions related to the Growth Management Act (GMA).
For instance, the bill would allow mandatory pavement inspections to be suspended until the 2013-15 biennium, waste management renewal plans would be due every 10 years instead of every five years, the Department of Ecology would extend stormwater permits through June 2013, and each county’s GMA standing would be reassessed every 10 years instead of every seven,.
One of the bill’s co-sponsors, Sen. Craig Pridemore, D-Vancouver, observed that Washington state counties would benefit because they would be able to cut less from essential county programs like public safety and health.
However, “All of these programs would continue this year and on into the future,” he said. “But this bill will provide them with a little more time” to meet state requirements.
Pridemore also said that the effects of the bill would vary from county to county.
“Counties like Clark will likely be most impacted by extension of the GMA and SMA (Shorelines Management Act) provisions of the bill, while smaller counties will probably benefit more from extension of time lines for complying with the state’s green-car initiative,” he said.
April Putney, of land management organization Futurewise, said at the bill’s hearing before the Senate Government Operations Committee that she’s opposed to the permanent change from seven to 10 years between each county’s renewal of their comprehensive GMA plan. Most other local government changes that the bill makes are temporary until the counties can generate more revenue, and Putney said it would be better to offer only certain counties a 10-year plan review instead of the whole state.
According to Rep. Larry Springer, D-45th District, who’s sponsoring the House companion bill, it would also allow cities to delay compliance with new and costly stormwater regulations, requirements for land use implementation deadlines, and road building regulations.
Besides delayed compliance with GMA and SMA regulations, the bill would allow local governments to use means besides newspapers to publish required public notices.
Using alternative means to public notices in newspapers could save large cities like Seattle about $400,000 per year, according to Springer.
He also predicts smaller towns that rely heavily on their community newspapers for publishing of such notices probably won’t change.
Springer said that websites will be the likely choice for cities that opt out of using newspapers for their public notices.
“One of the ideas that’s been out there is to use a web-based approach,” Springer said. “To create a statewide website that cities and counties could feed into for any number of notification purposes.”
Local bulletin boards around a city could also be used to post public notices.
If a state-run website is created for public notices, Bill Will, executive director of the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association is concerned about the disadvantages that will be faced by Washington residents that don’t have Internet access. “The small amount of cost savings to government is more than offset by the downside of it,” he said. He added that the bill, as now written, could lead municipalities to forgo publishing in newspapers or posting to the web any notices, with its opt-out provision.
Rowland Thompson, speaking for Allied Daily Newspapers of Washington, made that same observation earlier in the hearing Thursday as he urged the senate committee members to delete the public notice elements from the bill.
Publisher of The Olympian George Le Masurier shared his opposition to the proposal of a state-run public notice website at the Feb. 3 hearing. “A medium free of government influence needs to be used…5360 is at odds with the intentions of our (nation’s) founders,” he said.
Those opposed to the public notice provision in the bill told the committee that notices published in newspapers carry an obligation to provide proof of publication. Such proof would not be required from public entities choosing to post notices to their respective web sites, or to a bulletin board at their public offices.
Le Masurier also said it would be too difficult for cities and counties to verify that they have published the legal notices in original form without changes.
Frank DeVaul, publisher of several newspapers in Southwest Washington, agreed with Le Masurier that it would be difficult for counties to prove they have sufficiently published the legal notices, as state law now requires. He believes lawsuits will be underfoot as counties and cities try to defend whether a public notice has been altered, or even printed enough times.
“Many people, especially our senior citizens don’t have reliable Internet access,” he said.
Representatives of cities and counties organizations said the cost savings would be effective. They support allowing municipalities to use their own websites as the official repository for public notices to meet publication requirements.
Springer said he intends to make sure that online public notices would be sufficient, but isn’t sure how they could be tracked. He expects the issue will be discussed at the house bill’s public hearing on Feb. 4 in the House Local Government Committee.
“Our interest is to make sure that whatever they (cities and counties) do decide to do adequately serves as notice,” Rep. Springer said.
