YOUR VIEW: Print Legal Advertisement Laws Rip Off Taxpayers, Support Florida House Bill 35 and Senate Bill 402

By  //  February 2, 2021

YOUR OPINION

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IF I TOLD YOU… That every year Florida taxpayers pay local newspapers millions and millions of dollars to print legal advertisements that could just as easily be put on agency websites for free and at no cost to the taxpayers?

“Randy Fine’s Florida House Bill 35 eliminates extremely antiquated law and will save taxpayers millions and millions of dollars.”

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IF I TOLD YOU…

That every year Florida taxpayers pay local newspapers millions and millions of dollars to print legal advertisements that could just as easily be put on agency websites for free and at no cost to the taxpayers?

What would you say if I told you there is a current Florida Law that requires government agencies to spend your hardworking tax dollars on that kind of advertisement?

I mean think about it for a minute…in today’s time of websites, social media and email, your taxpayer dollars are being just simply wasted paying some newspaper to print legal notices about when commission meetings are taking place and so forth when every bit of it could be put on the agencies website or social media sites for free!

And even better, what would you say if I told you that the media is strongly lobbying against a bill being proposed in the Florida House and Senate, that eliminates that extremely antiquated law and saves taxpayers millions and millions of dollars?

You know, dollars that could instead be used on public safety, road repairs, parks, and even education, because our public schools have to follow the same rule when they do legal advertisements as well!

You know exactly what you would say…you would say “that’s insane,” “that’s nuts,” or “it’s disgusting to think my taxpayer dollars are being wasted, advertising something in a paper that could be posted for free on websites, Facebook and so forth!”

Oh and check this out, what would you say if I told you that the media defends this siphoning of money from the taxpayers, by saying it’s not about the revenue the current law generates for the paper, it’s about them doing community service for the citizens?

You and I both know what you would say, exactly what I said… “what a crock!” If it was about doing a service for the community, the paper could simply take the information off the various websites and publish it for free as a community service, but instead, they would prefer to keep living off the taxpayer’s dime.

Well thankfully, Brevard’s very own Representative, Randy Fine said, “that’s enough” and sponsored a bill that is being heard tomorrow in the House with a companion bill soon to be heard in the Senate that ends this antiquated law while saving taxpayers in each community millions of dollars!

So now that you know exactly what you would say, call your Florida House and Senate members wherever you live and say it… “vote yes on Florida House Bill 35 and Senate Bill 402 so we can stop wasting the taxpayer’s money.”

– Sheriff Wayne Ivey

To submit your opinion, e-mail Contact@SpaceCoastDaily.com

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