A bill before the Colorado legislature, House Bill 26-1095, would allow public notices to be satisfied solely by posting them on government websites in certain circumstances.
That should not be allowed in any circumstance.
Public notice exists to protect the public. It informs residents about zoning changes, property tax increases, special district elections, annexations, construction bids, water rulings, foreclosure proceedings, and other actions that directly affect property, neighborhoods, and taxes. It is not simply about putting information somewhere online. It is a carefully constructed legal safeguard built on independence, permanence, verifiability and accessibility.
At the heart of public notice law is a simple principle: governments must inform the public through independent platforms they do not control.
Allowing a government entity to declare its own website legally sufficient turns that safeguard upside down. It puts the fox in charge of the henhouse.
Colorado has well over 4,000 governmental entities. Each may operate its own website, with its own navigation, formatting, search tools and retention practices. If notices are allowed to move solely onto government websites, residents could be forced to search multiple separate platforms just to stay informed: one for the county, one for the city, one for the fire district, one for the school district, one for a metropolitan district, one for parks and recreation, one for sanitation, and so on.
That is not transparency. It is fragmentation and obscuration.
Even well-intentioned governments make mistakes. In a recent Colorado example, a major municipality’s website returned 404 errors on crucial budget documents at the very time officials were asking voters to approve publishing notices exclusively on its website. Websites change vendors. Pages are reorganized. Links break. Content can be altered or removed, whether intentionally or not. A printed legal notice cannot be quietly changed once published. It becomes part of a fixed public record and is uploaded to a centralized, statewide online repository that aggregates notices across Colorado.
Colorado already has a modern system. Legal newspapers publish notices in print and online, and every notice is uploaded to a free, searchable statewide website. That system combines local visibility, digital access and independent verification.
The provision in HB 26-1095 that allows government-only publication is being described as a narrow fix for rare situations. That framing is misleading. Colorado law already provides structured solutions for situations where no legal newspaper is based in a county. In fact, during this very legislative session, the Colorado Press Association worked closely with counties and other stakeholders to modernize those provisions and expand placement options within the independent system.
Compounding the problem is the language of this provision. The proposal allows bypassing newspapers where the government deems a paper “unavailable” or where adjacent-county publication would not provide “adequate notice.” Those terms are undefined and subjective. Under this language, the same government required to give notice could declare independent publication insufficient and substitute its own website.
That is not how public notice law currently operates.
Public notice statutes are detailed, structured and precise. They regulate formatting, type size, frequency, duration and proof of publication through sworn affidavits that courts rely upon. Notices intersect with hundreds of statutory provisions involving elections, property rights, tax sales, zoning approvals, creditor claims, and special district actions. The law creates clear standards because due process depends on certainty.
Allowing government website posting to satisfy “all publication requirements” sweeps aside that structure with a vague override.
In 2023, Florida allowed limited government-run website publication for certain notices. A major academic study from faculty at the University of Chicago, Texas A&M University and Yale University, released in January of this year, examined the results. It showed that when notices are removed from newspapers and placed only on government-operated platforms, civic engagement declines and fewer people show up at public meetings.
When notices left independent newspapers, fewer people saw them and fewer people showed up. Moving notice off independent platforms does not increase awareness. It reduces it.
Colorado residents trust local newspapers and their websites as primary sources of public information. A statewide survey in 2022 found that 80% of adults cite local newspapers and newspaper websites as their most trusted source for public notices, and nearly two-thirds report reading notices in print or online local publications. Public notice works because it appears where people already look for information.
Reform may be appropriate as technology and usage evolve, as we have demonstrated repeatedly over the years. But reform must always preserve independence, aggregation, permanence and clarity. It must not allow the government to replace independent publication with self-publication based on vague and subjective standards.
Public notice is too important to let governments control how and where it reaches the public.
Tim Regan-Porter is CEO of the Colorado Press Association, which represents print and digital newsrooms throughout Colorado.
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