Maybe I can get caught up with a few items with this column.

First of all, a loyal reader of The Times asked me when I was going to have the annual weather totals like I do each year. Well I just hadn’t gotten around to it until now.

We had a total of 7.74 inches of rain for the year. As for monsoon, we had plenty of evening lightning displays, but we didn’t have much rain during the official monsoon season of June 15 through September 30.

We did have a big windstorm on June 4 when a number of trees were blown down in the community. However, only .03 inches of rain was recorded. Two days later another storm produced .21 inches of rain.

The largest one-day total was 1.33 inches on Jan. 31. The most troublesome rain was on Nov. 15, the final day of the Fountain Festival of Arts and Crafts, when .30 inches of rain reduced the final day turnout.

July and August were the two hottest months of 2015. There were only three days (all 99 degrees) in August that did not reach 100 degrees and only four in July.

The first 100-degree day of the year was on May 30 and it was 102 degrees. the final 100-degree day was on Oct. 1 when it was also 102. The highest temperature was 112 degrees on August 14.

The coldest day was Dec. 28 when the high was just 47 degrees. The coldest reading at night was 30 degrees on Dec. 30.

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I had another reader of The Times question an item in a recent column that listed a number of Hollywood actors who came to Fountain Hills for a celebrity tennis exhibition to celebrate the grand opening of the Fountain Hills Swim and Racquet Club.

In that column I listed Doug McClure as being on the western television show, “Wagon Train.” The reader said he was on “The Virginian.”

I knew he had gained fame on “The Virginian” after playing the role of Trampas for eight years. But I thought he had just replaced Robert Horton on “Wagon Train” at the time he appeared here. But I couldn’t find anything on him being on “Wagon Train” when I Googled it. So thanks for the correction.

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Once again I am asking you to contact our legislators and tell them to vote No on a newly-introduced bill The Times and other community newspapers in Maricopa and Pima Counties.

The bill is HB 2447. It would require the Arizona Corporation Commission to establish and maintain a searchable database to which documents could be posted as an alternative to being published in a newspaper of general circulation.

These provisions would only apply to filings relating to business entities with a known place of business in a county with a population of more than 800,000 persons (i.e., Maricopa and Pima). Thus, the effect of the bill would be to eliminate newspaper publication requirements by businesses located in Maricopa and Pima counties in newspapers in those two counties. The status quo would apply to filings for business in all other counties. The effective date of the bill would be Dec. 31, 2016.

Public Notice ads are those that are mostly notices of when a business plans to incorporate or form an L,L.C. Publishing these notices in a general circulation newspaper are fundamental to a free society, a permanent record that the public is adequately formed about decisions taken or should be taken.

Over the three–week period that they will run in a newspaper, there Is a good chance that any concerned residents will read them. The newspaper further uses a banner headline over the section page of the paper and house ads throughout the paper to further draw attention to these legal ads.

One representative at the hearing last week said the public notice fees for start-up businesses were too high and that made them anti-business.

Let me tell you folks, these fees are $48 for an L.L.C. and $115 for articles of incorporation. If a potential business has trouble paying that fee then I’ll bet that business isn’t going to make it anyway. They are most likely too undercapitalized.

I know from personal experience. I started Arizona Sports Digest when I had just finished my B.S. Degree at ASU. I let my love of sports and publishing get the better of me rather than take the time to develop a well-thought-out business plan. I did that the second time and found an interested financial backer. Well, we’re still in business today. We constantly have to re-invent ourselves. And part of that is to protect and expand our revenue sources.

As I said earlier, the bill also requires the Arizona Corporation Commission to establish and maintain a searchable database to which documents could be posted as an alternative to being published a newspaper of general circulation. The Arizona Newspapers Association already has a searchable website of public notices that has been in use for more than 10 years. It includes public notice postings from all of its member newspapers and is constantly upgraded.

Public notices generate some $40,000 a year. The potential of losing that revenue would have a huge effect on the future of this newspaper.

We are attempting to regain some of the loss of classified revenue. We were running as many as 14 pages of Classifieds each week in 2007. Today, we average three to four pages. It went to the Internet, but we are coming back by beginning to show that we are still a way to sell unwanted and used items.

Car dealers are back in newspapers because they were not being found on the Internet. In the past year, after returning to newspaper advertising, they are having record sales.

J.C. Penney is back to using newspapers after a disastrous marketing campaign on the internet almost brought the retail giant to its knees.

Well, sorry I got a little bit windy this week. But House Bill 2447 is potentially very damaging to us and every other newspaper in Arizona’s two largest counties

Again, if you agree with me and enjoy reading The Times, please contact our legislators and tell them you oppose this piece of legislation. Jay Lawrence can be reached at jlawrence@azleg.gov. Michelle Ugenti’s email address is and Sen. John Kavanagh is at jkavanagh @azleg.gov.