In 1947, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill uttered the following oft-quoted words to the House of Commons:  

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried.” 

The same idea could be applied to public notice. For centuries, societies have given public notice in various ways—from a piece of paper posted in the public square to posting information on social media—and for centuries, people have complained that they never know enough about what their government is doing.  

Change is bound to happen, but the key question is: Are we moving in the right direction?  

New joint research from Yale, Texas A&M and the University of Chicago indicates the answer is “no” in Florida. 

First, a quick refresher: Up until 2022, the state required public notices—ranging from government business and bidding to home foreclosures—to run in a print newspaper, on that outlet’s website, and at the statewide repository site, floridapublicnotices.com.  

In 2022, Florida became the first state to pass legislation removing the longstanding requirement that public notices appear in print, allowing counties—if they choose—to designate a website where government notices can be published.  

In 2023, Alachua County was one of the first counties to take advantage of this law. The Alachua County Commission unanimously voted to pull county notices from where they had always run, the Gainesville Sun, and put them instead on the county website and social media.  

At the time, commissioners said they wanted to take the savings and use them to take out ads that would promote where notices could be found. That never occurred.  

Speaking to commissioners before the vote, Assistant County Manager Tommy Crosby touted the county website’s 1.2 million visitors over the previous six months, but that would translate to just 492 average page views per month in the website’s first year of operation.  

According to new data obtained in a public records request, the Alachua County site averaged 307 users per month over the last 10 months.  

As it turns out, this is not unusual.  

“We find no change in the website traffic of county public notice websites after the reform, consistent with the argument that citizens are unlikely to access notices on government websites,” Yale, Texas A&M and University of Chicago researchers reported. 

Supporters of the county website option will argue that with social media and other efforts, there are actually more people informed now than ever.  

If that were true, we could expect to see increased engagement, but that’s not what researchers found: “Consistent with a decline in participation, we find that public meetings held in affected governments experienced a 16% decrease in the number of speakers after the reform.”  

As it turns out, developers have been among the biggest beneficiaries.  

“Consistent with the decline in newspaper notices of planning and zoning meetings reducing activism against new construction, we find a 35% increase in the number of commercial zoning permits in affected cities after the reform,” the report said. “Overall, our results suggest that revoking the requirement to publish newspaper notices removes information about local government activities, which reduces citizen engagement.” 

Voters understand this: A 2025 Mason-Dixon poll found that 92% of registered voters in Florida believe local governments should be required to publish notices through a printed and online newspaper and on floridapublicnotices.com.  

It’s not a perfect system, but as researchers note, it remains valuable: “Our findings suggest that newspaper notices are (still) relevant disclosures that help local constituents engage with their governments.” 

It so happens this is Sunshine Week, a nonpartisan collaboration coordinated by the Brechner Freedom of Information Project at UF’s College of Journalism and Communications, which aims to shine a light on the importance of public records and open government. 

If you think Alachua County can and should do better, it’s a perfect time to let your county commissioners know.