Public notice out of state helped inform local community

There has been a lot of debate over whether or not there should be changes to legislation requiring public notices to be required to be printed in newspapers.
We have heard all the arguments, some communities don’t have a newspaper, it’s expensive, the list goes on and while it may be relevant in some parts of the state, in our region it’s in our view nothing but a lame excuse to make government even less transparent, and less accountable to the people.
Public notices serve as essentially an arbitrator of the truth. Government officials have no real obligation to talk to the press, answer questions, inform the public about anything going on, and as we have written about there are some officials who take full advantage of not being transparent.
When it comes to legal notices however, there’s no hiding the truth. It’s there for the public to see.
Then, last week, a reporter for this newspaper happened to stumble upon a public notice halfway across the country, indicating Kasson City Administrator Tim Ibisch was interviewing for a similar position in Tennessee.
As we discovered from our reporting it appears those in City Hall weren’t notified. Some who spoke to the DCI off the record said the first they heard of it was when they were contacted by the reporter on the story.
While there is certainly merit to the arguments that people including public officials should be allowed to apply and interview for jobs, and even take them, there is no question top level positions such as superintendents, city administrators/ managers, or in some cases city clerks, come with a lot of responsibility to the community they serve.
Generally, this is the case, there are some whispers of someone leaving to take a similar level position in a different community.
Usually the reason people know is because the community looking to hire the individual is required to make public the list of finalists and make public when any interview would be occurring with the entire city council or governing body.
The latest example locally is when Kasson-Mantorville Superintendent Mark Matuska left his post with the school district, and the school board had a list of finalists and conducted interviews.
In this case, since Ibisch was interviewing for a job over 1,000 miles away, it makes sense no one including this paper was aware of the situation.
While we are not taking a position about whether or not Ibisch should have been required to inform the community about him being a finalist for a position, the question is would anyone in the public, including elected officials, have had any idea if it wasn’t for the public notice being published in the local Tennessee newspaper and then reported on in this paper?
This is just one example of the important role public notices play, and why it’s critical for government bodies to continue to be required to print public notices in newspapers across Minnesota.
Following the closure of eight newspapers in the suburbs this spring, there was a major push by some lobbying groups to water down or do away with all together public notices.
Luckily those efforts were unsuccessful albeit some temporary changes for news deserts.
We encourage elected officials in St. Paul to continue to stand up for transparency and public discourse by continuing to vote against crippling reforms to Minnesota’s public notice laws.
More importantly we encourage residents of Minnesota to require full transparency from their elected and appointed leaders, including through public notices.