One of my favorite sections of the newspaper (besides the section in the Sunday edition that lists District Court proceedings for who got convicted of what and what their sentences were) is the Public Notices. I don’t know if the big papers like the Strib or the New York Times print public notices, but our paper does. We have to vote every general election if we want the notices published in the local paper. It always passes. As a local district judge told me, it is the best place to find out what your friends and neighbors are up to.
By public notices I mean foreclosure announcements, city and county commission proceedings, school board minutes, bids for government contracts, summonses for parents to attend juvenile hearings, divorce related interim property rulings, and name changes.
One of my friends was surprised to read that her sister’s house was in foreclosure. “I’ve been sending her money for the mortgage for months! What has she been spending it on instead?”
Public notices provide access to unanswered community questions. ” How can they keep that new restaurant open when hardly anyone goes there and the prices are so high?” That is answered by seeing the notice that So and So construction company is placing a lien on the restaurant in question for not paying the construction bill.
Our local paper prints the following:
WHAT IF AMERICA DIDN’T NOTICE?
Public notices help expose:
Fraud in Government!
Dishonest businesses!
Unfair competitive practices!
PARTICIPATE IN DEMOCRACY. READ YOUR PUBLIC NOTICES.
How do you participate in Democracy?
