We’ve helped out a lot of people over the years – monetary donations, news stories announcing some “good cause,” publicizing charitable organizations, publishing business stories and the list goes on…

Now we’re asking citizens to help us (and yourselves) out a little bit. We did the same thing last year, and it seems as if we’ve been fighting this trend for many years.

At least one bill has been introduced to eliminate newspaper publication requirements of corporate filings and instead have the Arizona Corporation Commission post them online. This bill (HB 2554) has been introduced by our local lawmaker – Rep. John Kavanagh.

We and the Arizona Newspapers Association are strongly opposed to this measure. We’d like residents to contact our two district state representatives – Kavanagh and Michelle Ugenti – and ask them to oppose HB 2554.

For more than 100 years, Arizona newspapers have been publishing public notices. Public notice laws were created to notify the public of government and certain business actions that may affect their interests or rights. Communities have come to rely on local newspapers for this information and, more importantly, the information is available to individuals who may not be searching for it so they also have adequate notice.

Arizona newspapers already upload their public notices to the Arizona Newspaper Association’s website on a weekly basis and post them onto their own websites. The ANA site is a comprehensive, organized and searchable compendium of public notices. In other words, government doesn’t have to do that – it’s already being done.

Newspapers effectively “push” the public notices out to the public. If notices are only on government websites, it requires citizens to look for what they need to know. The National Newspaper Association did a study in 2011 that showed citizens do read public notices. Of those polled, 83 percent read public notices (from very often to occasionally).

Sure, we charge a small price for these notices, but by providing community papers like ours with revenue to operate, public-notice requirements enable production of a greater variety of information, news, features and sports in addition to the notices themselves.

So help us out and contact our lawmakers. Tell them not to mess with the public notice laws. They are working just fine, and changing the system will provide just a little less sunshine in this great sunny state we call Arizona.