The ongoing saga of Madore vs the world saw an escalation not too long ago as the County Council removed the contract with the Reflector for placing legal notices and returned it to the Lazy C. Viewing the outbursts on Madore’s “newspaper” facebook page shows just how this change doesn’t set well with him.
With the support of devoted followers, allegations of “illegal favoritism,” “Collusion,” “Corruption” and just about any nefarious accusations you can think of are leveled towards the three Republicans he has labeled as “the Three Liberals,”
Back when the Reflector was selected as the county newspaper of record I fully supported the switch as it is no secret I have little regard for the Lazy C.
But by a majority vote, the council has awarded that to the Lazy C once again and honestly, it makes little difference to me any longer.
Why it is rising to this level of angst I cannot answer. The whole situations seems overblown, even to the joy of the award expressed to me by email from Lazy C editor, Lou Brancaccio when within minutes of the award sent me a message with only “Boom” in it.
Others that Madore promotes as the ones telling “what is really happening here in Clark County” have chimed in now, leading to allegations of un-credited use of intellectual property.
In all, this is probably one of the most needless arguments going on in the county at this time.
Yes, the contract is worth thousands of dollars, but let’s face it, who really looks up legal notices from the county, daily or even weekly?
Paid for or free, as is the Reflector, not that many people rush to read such notices.
My personal opinion is the angst over this is misguided and completely unnecessary.
Legal notices are governed by the state in the Revised Code of Washington with a list of requirements of how a newspaper is selected and it is obvious this is obsolete, given how prevalent computers and the internet is.
Since RCW’s are set by legislature, it is time for our legislators to reconsider the applicable RCW’s and allow counties to place legal notices online where they can be readily seen and read by interested parties without having to acquire a newspaper.
Clark County has a state of the art website with links to each Department and more.
The County employs people that maintain and each Department has employs that place information on their page and keep it updated for citizens.
I have to believe going online would greatly decrease the cost involved to the county as well as settle the controversy of which newspaper is better.
I call on all of the legislators from Southwest Washington, Democrat or Republican, to put your heads together and introduce legislation to accomplish this.
This should be an effort all citizens can get behind with no regard of partisanship.
Several businesses have gone “paperless” by billing online and saving lots of money by eliminating printing and mailing costs.
This is the 21st Century we keep hearing, so how about we get the county into it where legal notices are concerned?
UPDATE May 2, 2016 at 8:45 AM: I received word that an effort to permit this was tried in the legislature, but the house killed it.
To me, it is unacceptable that our tax dollars are subsidizing newspapers, a private entity with publishing of these notices that could easily be placed online.
In case it is forgotten, the Lazy C was one of the papers in the state that lobbied and received a 40% tax cut in their B&O tax in 2010. I have asked if this tax cut is still in effect, but received no answer.
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