Legislature debates modernizing public‑notice rules after concerns about reach and Guam Public Notice website

Senators spent more than three hours debating a bill to modernize Guam’s public‑notice law, with lawmakers split over whether digital publication rules would actually reach the island’s local population.

The measure would expand the statutory definitions of “newspaper of general circulation” and “eligible media platform” to include electronic newspapers and qualified digital media platforms. Senator (Barragada), who proffered an amendment, read an alternative definition on the floor: “public notice as used in this chapter means a publication by newspaper of general circulation or by another eligible media platform, which is reasonably calculated to provide notice of the facts it announces to the local public at large, which is independently verifiable and by electronic publication in the Guam public notice website.”

That amendment aimed to remove a 15% audience threshold baked into the original text and to emphasize notice to the…