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Highland Park council to wait for state decision after debate on posting legal notices online
Summary
Council members debated switching legal-notice publication from paid newspaper notices to a dedicated page on the borough website, citing potential savings and concerns about local news sustainability. The council agreed to table action until state legislation is finalized.
Highland Park council members discussed whether the borough should stop paying newspapers to publish legally required notices and instead post those notices on a dedicated page of the borough website, but they agreed at the work session to wait for a pending state bill before changing policy.
Mayor Foster, who introduced the item as a League of Municipalities proposal, said the move would save the borough money while keeping notices publicly available. “Average is about 700 a month,” Foster said when outlining the current monthly cost for notices; she urged creating a centrally accessible online notice page so contractors and residents could find bid solicitations and other legal notices in one place.
Supporters said an online posting could broaden access for businesses and local contractors who now have to hunt through multiple outlets. A council member added that municipalities, counties and the state could each post notices so residents would see items in more than one official location.
Opponents urged caution. One council member said local newspapers perform a public-good function and that halting publication payments risks further disinvestment in local journalism. Other members raised practical questions — how many readers access notices through newspapers, how to measure clicks on the borough website and whether county or state postings would fully replace local distribution channels.
The council noted that the Legislature is considering a permissive change that would allow municipalities to publish notices on municipal, county or state web portals rather than in newspapers. Several members said the bill is likely to reach both the Assembly and the Senate this year and emphasized that the borough would retain the option to continue publishing in newspapers if it chooses.
Rather than adopt a unilateral change now, the council agreed to table any local policy shift until the state bill is finalized. The council recorded no formal vote on changing publication practice during the session.
Notes from the discussion indicate the borough currently pays roughly $700 per month for legal notices (about $8,400 annually), though council members asked staff for better analytics on how residents and businesses access notices and whether web posting would materially change public access.
