The Post-Record has been use for many years for posting various notices. This article is ridiculous.

@Resident -- that's the problem. The article is not ridiculous. What's ridiculous is that there are only 3 copies of this newspaper in circulation in MV and they are ALL in City Hall apparently

Print newspapers are dying. The laws around public notices need to be updated to reflect modern media.

It feels like a very reasonable solution would be to still use the Post-Record but to also replicate the information on the City of Mountain View website. Easily accessible for all.

MV Voice has a itsy-bitsy-teensie-weensie conflict of interest here. This should at least be explicitly mentioned and not just hinted in the article.

MV should at very least also have a copy of the paper in the library, and should add a complimentary subscription for the library as a condition for future contracts.

Legal notice laws should be updated. An independently archived version of the notices needs to exist somewhere, so publishing on city website alone isn't enough.

The article doesn't really mention that this newspaper is not the only way the word gets out. City council agendas are published on the website, emails are sent out, they're on the bulletin board at the front door of city hall. I was at the animal ordinance meeting because I got the email.

Do you think that if the notices were buried in 9-point font in the classified section of the Mercury News that any more people would see them? The way real people find out about city issues is either via reading stories (not ads) in newspapers or via other means entirely.

Hi folks,

I just wanted to chime in here to give a little background on this story. Other commenters have pointed out that Voice has a conflict of interest on this issue, and they’re absolutely right. There’s no two ways about it: We have a vested interest here, and I thought we made that clear in the article.
For years, this conflict has kept our news team from pushing the city on this issue, because we didn’t want to conflate our editorial and business departments.
What changed for us is when we finally saw the abysmal circulation numbers of the SJ Post Record. I don’t think anyone can argue in good faith that Mountain View residents will be informed about their local government from a newspaper that circulates <50 print copies.
At the Voice, we had some robust arguments on whether we should pursue this story, and we decided the public interest outweighed our conflict. Trust me, it was a decision we didn’t make lightly.

Ok, I’ve said my piece. Please carry on!

This is just not right, to the point of being absurd.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy starts with the Vogons demolishing the Earth so that a hyperspace bypass could be built. Earthling Arthur Dent naturally objected.

“But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”

The Voice has been trying to raise money to fund it's operation.

For many years, long time readers and residents know that the Voice is not a news source but an opinion paper who tries to push it's political agenda on the residents of our city.

It constantly writes one sided hit pieces against one group of property owners in our city, yet it never writes a story from the other sides perspective. Really unfair.

If the Voice publishes a story what the Governor did in our state, and you point out he also pardoned a bunch of criminals in the same week, your post gets deleted.

The Voice has banned many readers from this site, for only disagreeing and pointing out the Hippocrates at the Voice.

They have lost many readers. Lots of people no longer wish to waste their time with the Voice and have picked up the Palo Alto Daily Post instead, which is what I also do. I only occasionally pop in here.

I'm impressed to see a mention of the Greek physician Hippocrates in a comment in the MV Voice. It's probably the first time Hippocrates (born 2,600 years ago) has been mentioned in the Voice.

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The City of MV is violating the spirit if not the letter of the law that requires public notice. Publishing a notice in a newspaper with almost zero circulation is not an attempt to inform the public, it's an attempt to keep the public in the dark. If MV wants to publish notices in this bogus newspaper that's fine, they also need to mirror those notices in a format that's accessible to the public, such as their website. Anything less is fraud. MV citizens should be outraged, this is nothing less than a takeover of democracy.

I run a newspaper called DevNull and I'll charge the city only 1 cent to publish the notices in DevNull. My bid wins, I'm the lowest bidder. Come to me.

Yes you're right. This paper is a politically motivated hit piece. Along with a few that never quite understood English 101.

I think at the very least, we should follow up on the implied suggestion that our own public library purchase a subscription to the paper used as our city's journal of record.

@Hm - ah come on. We all know autocorrect changes words all the time. He probably misspelled hypocrite and he/she missed the change. Seems your comment is rather petty and not very relevant to the content of his message. Also, how do you know who made the comment? There are many, many of us who object to the left wing bias and constant censorship of this paper. He/she is right when stating that most articles are opinion pieces and objections to the editors opinions are deleted and topics shut down when they start to go in a direction with which the Voice disagrees.

A case in point is the Voice’s next article re Joe Biden. It’s a one sided pro Biden/ anti Trump article and the moderator shut down the conversation before it can even begin by requiring registration. They don’t want to give anybody the opportunity to comment on the bias.

Oh my goodness, they required registration to comment on an article? How could they stifle your free speech so horribly. Please file a lawsuit with the ACLU immediately!

Conservative victimhood complex is really a sight to behold.

In reference to the public notice lawsthis writing might be worth considering from (Web Link

“Public Notice Law

Public notices inform citizens of the everyday activities of government. From government spending to developing new policies, it is important for people to be informed of actions taken by public officials that affect citizens' everyday lives. Public Notices are essential to a democracy and an informed citizenry. Without public notices, citizens cannot properly and adequately make informed decisions.

While the Internet is a great resource for information, public notices have been and remain most effective in newspapers. Newspapers of general circulation provide daily and weekly news about the community that people seek out. People pay to receive newspapers that are dependably made available at set intervals in homes, at offices, stores, street corners and every local coffee shop. People seek out newspapers to obtain the news about crime, justice, sports, politics, weather, social events, food and entertainment, comics, crossword puzzles and other games. They look for advertisements for all kinds of products and services. Included in this tightly edited and limited package of daily and weekly information are public notice advertisements.

Public notice advertisements published in newspapers that alert citizens of important events in their community are "pushed" into millions of California households. These published public notices inform not just the political insiders who might occasionally visit a government website or sign up for mailed alerts, or even those with a direct stake in the matter, but the entire community.

Newspapers are the watchdogs of their local communities and can most effectively monitor the actions of their respective local governments. Public notices don't just keep local residents informed. They also hold public officials and agencies accountable. Additionally, public notices in newspapers are permanent records that cannot be altered or deleted. Published public notices provide actual notice to the public about government actions like tax and fee increases, land use and environmental decisions, delinquent taxpayer notices that can lead to a government seizure and sale of someone's home and the expenditure of public funds. To be effective, public notices must have these attributes:

• PUBLICATION IS IN A FORUM INDEPENDENT OF THE GOVERNMENT.

• THE PUBLISHED NOTICE IS A PRESERVED AND SECURE TANGIBLE RECORD THAT IS ARCHIVED.

• THE NOTICE IS CONVENIENTLY ACCESSIBLE BY ALL SEGMENTS OF SOCIETY.

• PUBLICATION IS VERIFIABLE (BY WAY OF AN AFFIDAVIT OF PUBLICATION).

This website is designed to provide increased value to the public by providing a snapshot of public notices published throughout California in a convenient and searchable format and at no cost to the taxpayer.”

The key part:

• “THE NOTICE IS CONVENIENTLY ACCESSIBLE BY ALL SEGMENTS OF SOCIETY.”

It looks like this news report indicated a serious problem with the City of Mountain View.

Given that this obscure document the San Jose Post Record is NOT CONVENIENTLY ACCESSIBLE BY ALL SEGMENTS OF SOCIETY.

Thus the city may in fact be in violation of these standards.

@Hmm. - if the Voice required registration for all articles I would agree with you. But they don’t- they only require registration for SOME articles, those in which the right pushes back on the leftist bias and sometimes not until the right starts pushing back. The registration is clearly a tactic to limit the number of comments. No victimhood here, just an awareness that the Voice doesn’t practice journalism, they write op ed’s and have a political agenda. If you don’t see it then you’re not paying attention.

In response to Oh geez you said:

“@Hmm. - if the Voice required registration for all articles I would agree with you. But they don’t- they only require registration for SOME articles, those in which the right pushes back on the leftist bias and sometimes not until the right starts pushing back. The registration is clearly a tactic to limit the number of comments.”

Registration DOES NOT limit freedom of expression where registration is free and simply requires explicit consent to the terms and conditions regarding a writers conduct, not to personally ridicule, intimidate, or threaten others when posting. In fact if you look at those who are not registered, they tend to make off comments and not discuss the topic at all.

You said:

“No victimhood here, just an awareness that the Voice doesn’t practice journalism, they write op ed’s and have a political agenda. If you don’t see it then you’re not paying attention.”

The fact that you are free to make such blanket criticism regarding your opinion of the “practice” of journalism is proof that your claim is simply untrue. But that is your right to express.

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Basically two kinds of people will read a story like this: Those acquainted/experienced with Legal-Notices rituals, and those who aren't.

To the first group, and those of the 2nd who think or learn more about the subject, there's no real news here -- the existence of papers like the Post-Record makes total sense, and the first comment above (by Resident, of Jackson Park) summed things up. This Voice story caters to the second group, readers unfamiliar with the topic, apparently in a bid for sympathy.

Some newspapers specialize in Legal Notices. For business or estate matters requiring Legal Notices, your attorney or accountant knows about these outlets and will refer you. File certain common papers at your County Courthouse, and these newspapers spot the county record and send you offers to satisfy your Legal-Notice requirement at attractive prices. (I've never seen the MV Voice make such outreach, nor can I find "Legal Notices" solicited on its website.) So, such business goes to newspapers catering to it. The Legal Notice is a ritual. Many such Notices interest no one, and those who are interested know where to find them. Basically, everyone's happy almost all the time.

The article did mention why publication frequency disqualifies some papers such as the Voice and PA Post from the City's use for this purpose. And if "an ordinance was announced in the Post Record and the city's website, but few saw it," that really says less about the Post Record than about whether citizens care enough to pay attention to the City's announcements on its website, which always covers more subjects than any newspaper anyway.

For the record, if we suddenly restrict an otherwise perfectly respectful Town Square discussion thread to registered users, it's to stop bots from posting spam. Once a spambot finds its way onto a thread, restricting posters is the only tool we have to stop the attack.