Aloha State News

A legislative proposal in Hawaii, Senate Bill 2111, has been advanced by a key Senate committee. The bill aims to permit state and county agencies to publish certain official notices on their websites instead of in local newspapers. Senate Judiciary Chairman Karl Rhoads stated that this measure "would save the state a lot of money."

The proposal has faced criticism from various quarters, including the publisher of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Sandy Ma, executive director of Common Cause Hawaii, expressed concerns about potential accessibility issues. She argued that moving public notices online could "increase the divide in government services and accessibility between those with broadband access and those without."

Ma proposed that only "routine and non-critical public notices" should be eligible for online publication. Furthermore, she suggested that agencies planning to make this shift should announce it in physical publications for at least a year before making the transition exclusively online.