Public notice legislation fails community

To the Editor:

In a column published Tuesday, Oct. 7, in the Lewistown Sentinel, Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association President William Cotter touted newspapers, their ties and commitment to their communities, and the expansion of access House Bill 1291 promises regarding local government transparency.

He’s off the mark, in some ways entirely, and in others only for certain parts of our state.

One thing he’s right about: “local journalism is a service we depend on every day.”

It’s a service my hometown, where my family’s roots predate Shenandoah and Schuylkill County as a whole, only consistently receives because I stepped up about founding the Shenandoah Sentinel. This publication is a local news website covering northern Schuylkill County (or as countians say, “North of the Mountain”) and portions of surrounding counties.

Cotter references a day in September where “newspaper stories shined a light on the troubles, triumphs and transformations happening in communities across Pennsylvania” and “exposing challenges and keeping watch over those in power.”

That same day, the Shenandoah Sentinel was the only local news outlet doing exactly the latter as East Union Township zoners considered whether a man could have a chicken coop and camp on his property.

Because, unlike our print counterparts — whom we haven’t seen at East Union, West Mahanoy, Mahanoy, Ringtown, Union, or North Union meetings in years — we “are part of the neighborhoods [we] serve,” to use Cotter’s words. Our counterparts don’t live in the Shenandoah area. They don’t have a vested interest in Shenandoah Borough Council, Shenandoah Valley Schools, East Union Township, and the rest of our coverage area.

We do, and our readers turn to us for what we do best: keeping them informed about our shared community.

But, under House Bill 1291, which promises to bring public notices into the digital age, Shenandoah Borough cannot rely on digital outlets like us until three different print newspapers — the daily in Pottsville and the weeklies in Schuylkill Haven and Valley View (both of which aren’t found on newsstands anywhere near here) — completely disappear. That isn’t fair to Shenandoah or any of the communities we serve.

Areas like Lewistown and Valley View are lucky to have community-focused publications in their backyard. Places like Shenandoah and Lebanon aren’t so lucky, and outlets like the Shenandoah Sentinel have had to fill the void.

We shouldn’t have to wait and hope for the Hegins Valley to lose their paper so we can be relied upon to do what we already do best and inform our communities. House Bill 1291 needs a rewrite. It needs to do more than “maintain the status quo, as the PNA has said it will do.

It needs to serve our communities across Pennsylvania. My hometown, your hometown.

Right now, it fails my hometown.

Kaylee Lindenmuth

The Shenandoah Sentinel | Shenandoah, Pa.