Advice to mayor: Make allies, not enemies

Weston Mayor Dan Stermer swears it’s not personal. He says his push to change a Florida law that requires cities and counties to advertise public notices in newspapers is all about saving public money. He says it has nothing to do with his pique toward the Sun Sentinel — or me, personally — for opposing last year’s push to raise the sales tax in Broward County by a penny.

Yet somehow it feels personal because public notices — those big boxed ads that alert you to things like tax increases, zoning changes and government meetings — are also a revenue stream for newspapers.

When I asked Rep. Richard Stark, D-Weston, why he filed the bill, he said: “One of your good friends, Dan Stermer, contacted me on this one.”

Stark was being facetious. Dan Stermer and I are not good friends. I first met the mayor at a Village Square debate on transportation last year. Later, I came to know him as the face of the campaign to raise Broward’s six-cent sales tax — half a penny for transportation and half a penny for infrastructure. He put a lot of himself into that campaign and stood to be a champion among peers had it passed. But it didn’t pass. You probably remember the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board strongly opposed the tax increase. We called the plan a boondoggle because it lacked sufficient detail and accountability. I wrote the editorials and in the weeks leading up to the election, was asked to explain our position on local television and radio shows. On the other side, I usually faced the mayor and felt his ire more than once.

A month after the election, at a meeting of the Broward County Planning Council, Stermer blamed the Sun Sentinel for the plan’s defeat and suggested I should “go back to Hillsborough County,” my previous home.

Around that same time, Stermer asked Stark to file legislation that would let cities and counties post public notices on their government websites, or mail them to residents, rather than pay newspapers to publish them.

“It was the first time Weston asked me to do anything,” Stark told me. “This was not a priority bill for me.”

Yet there was Stark at a subcommittee meeting two weeks ago, presenting his bill to change the law on public notices. Fortunately, he got a chilly reception. For reasons bigger than newspaper bottom lines, the bill is presumed dead this year. But there’s always next year. After the meeting, I called the mayor. “This isn’t personal to me,” he said. “We didn’t do anything except request a bill be filed by our state representative. If the Sun Sentinel or you would like to draw the correlation between that and the three editorials you wrote about (the tax,) that’s your prerogative.”

Stermer notes that the public notices bill has been proposed before. He’s right. The Florida League of Cities has previously pursued it. And Dean Ridings, president of the Florida Press Association, says that within the league, Weston is leading the charge.

Stermer says Weston spends about $20,000 a year — from its $125 million annual budget — to advertise public notices in the newspaper. In the last few months, the city’s notices have alerted readers to a proposed tax increase, a special election and a proposed change in the city’s comprehensive plan for growth.

The mayor argues that more and more people, especially millenials, are getting their news online. He says government websites would deliver public notices to a worldwide audience. And he says mailing notices to people’s homes — and providing a public-access computer terminal at the library — would better serve constituents.

What Stermer fails to recognize is that the Sun Sentinel not only prints public notices in the paper, we also place them on the worldwide web via sunsentinel.com and on the state press association’s communal website.

Neither does he recognize how many senior citizens don’t use computers and how many low-income people can’t afford internet access.

Plus, it’s convenient for people to see all public notices in one place. Broward has 31 cities and Palm Beach County has 38. Can you imagine having to check 69 government websites to hear about a city’s construction job, public auction or proposed pet ordinance?

The leaders of Florida TaxWatch oppose Stermer’s push, saying people shouldn’t depend on government websites “to get critically important and timely information.”

A recent Mason Dixon poll also found Floridians overwhelming don’t want the law changed, with 82 percent saying they wouldn’t visit government websites to look for public notices.

From where I sit, I wonder if Stermer pushed this legislation not to serve Weston residents, but to retaliate against the Sun Sentinel.

So as regional leaders reconvene to present voters with a better transportation fix in two years, I hope they also choose a new champion who makes allies, not enemies.

The leaders of Florida TaxWatch oppose Dan Stermer’s push, saying people shouldn’t depend on government websites “to get critically important and timely information.”

Rosemary O’Hara