UPDATE: Well, at the operations meeting yesterday, it was poured on thick, but councilor Soehl wasn’t buying it. Councilor Bayse tried to explain to Curt that their is a ‘process’ they must follow. Really? Maybe you need to tell that to the administration. It was obvious from the ‘staged’ meeting (they haven’t had an operations meeting in over 6 MONTHS!) that the owners of the Dakota Scout, Joe and Jon respectively, buttered up councilors behind the scenes because their presentation wasn’t prepared at all, especially when they claimed to have 15 employees then only a few minutes later admitting their is only 3 full-time staff and two of them are the owners. There is also the numbers problem (Argus has a larger distribution) and they are NOT a partisan media source, in fact I couldn’t tell you what kind of media they are, but they are NOT partisan. But this LIE is the one that makes me shutter a bit;
The Dakota Scout said by using a local printing press, newspapers will be distributed to readers at no cost. That means price will not impact public notices.
“I feel that the Scout is a less costly option,” council member David Barranco said. “They are more local, they are locally printed and I feel like, if you look at the trajectory of readership, they are growing force in this city that we care the most about.”
While it is true you can pick up the DS for Free at any Burger King in town we still have to pay for the service. Unless I missed something in the presentation, it seems we are still paying for the service, so now the DS has just gone from a advertiser paid publication to taxpayer supported publication. Could we classify the DS as ‘State Media’ now?
As for the trajectory, the DS hasn’t really increased their distribution of the printed piece since their inception around 2 years ago. While their online readership is up (that is why they print the paper to push online use) which is great, it really has little to do with printed legal notices. Why would I go to a subscriber only website to read the legals I can just read online for free on multiple free government websites?
I could care less who gets the contract, but state law needs to change so we don’t have to play this stupid game anymore. Let the individual government entities determine how they will notice people, because I doubt people are making a quick trip to BK to pick up a copy of the DS for public notices.
———————
Well the short answer is probably YES. As you can see from the sudden operations meeting on Monday they got proposals from the Argus and the Dakota Scout.
BEFORE we get into the finer details, I talked to a city councilor tonight and he told me about the proposal and that the council will likely vote for the Dakota Scout. I told him that he needs to check the investors and the conflicts before you can move forward because I said I’ve heard there’s some conflicts. Anytime someone starts a fledgling business they will likely take out a loan and who is providing that loan or IN-KIND donations. Well apparently this councilor decided to ask the questions, WHICH IS AWESOME AND THEIR JOB, and shortly after he asked them Joe Sneve, one of the co-owners of the Dakota Scout, texted me to inform me that him and his business partner, Jonathan Ellis used their ‘life savings’ to start the business. While I could certainly question that more, I will take Joe’s word on it. Joe did make a good point, if the citizens are paying for this wouldn’t it be better to give the money to a local company?
Yes, and No.
If the paper being used was truly needed for this service, then I would say YES use the local rag. But it is NOT needed.
While State Law is on the Dakota Scout’s side, I still believe that state law needs to change so public notices DON’T appear in subscriber or even non-subscriber mags. Would we put public notices in ETC. Magazine? Hell no!
I think local government entities in SD should be able to post the agendas online on their local websites but also on other state websites. The notices should also be posted at all the public libraries and local government buildings. You should also be able to ask for a print-out of the agenda at these facilities at no cost.
This is a waste of money. When you have a subscription base of around 5,000 and the population is 215,000 how is this form of notifying the public effective?
Which brings us to my real issue with the Dakota Scout getting this contract. Could care less about the money. Don’t care about the Argus losing the contract. Don’t even care who may or may not being investing with them. The real issue is the Dakota Scout is a PARTISAN RAG! That’s not me. I hear it from Republicans, Democrats, Indies, Libs and and Cons. Everyone can see you are leaning in a certain direction and another reason why you shouldn’t get the contract. Why wasn’t the EPOCH TIMES* considered? I bet they have more subscribers in SF then the DS.
Like I said, the Council will likely put the notices back into local community ownership, life savings apparently, which should make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. The notices will be right in between an ad for a Republican candidate and an opinion piece about how wind turbines cause Cancer, and you can pick it up at Burger King next to Tidbits and a ‘We’re Hiring’ flier.
*I’ve joked with peeps that the DS is our local version of the Epoch Times.
