Legislative Wrap Up Report, 2022 Session

Public Notice Bill (HB 7049) (by Judiciary; State Affairs Committees, Reps. Fine, Grail, Fischer)

As previously reported, the legal notice bill, HB 7049, giving governmental agencies the option to place legal notices on county websites, and making other changes, passed the House and Senate and is now pending before the Governor for approval. FPA has sent a letter to the Governor requesting that he veto the bill.

A breakdown of the bill’s provisions was provided in the last ebulletin. Q and A’s will soon be posted on the FPA public notices resource page that provide more information on the bill.

We will continue to oppose the bad public policy of placing notice on government websites. We will be posting a resource sheet on the FPA website for members to use in communicating the pitfalls and drawbacks cities and counties might face in choosing the government website option.

Public Access to Personal Information in Crash Reports and Traffic Citations (SB 1614 by Sen. Harrell; HB 1121 by Rep. Brannan)

Currently, the law exempts crash reports from the open records laws but only for a limited time– 60 days. However, during the 60-day closure, the reports can be made immediately available to certain parties such as victims, insurance and governmental entities, and certain media.

The bill as originally filed last session ended media’s access during the 60-day exemption and beyond. However, we worked with the sponsor and highway safety agency and the immediate media access language (with some redactions allowed) was included in the amended bill.

The bill also exempts driver information contained in a traffic citation and prohibits using driver information contained in traffic citations for commercial purposes.

As a result of the changes, FPA is now neutral on the bill. It passed the House and Senate (HB laid on the table; refer to SB 1614) and has been send to the Governor for approval.