Bill Text: NJ A4231 | 2024-2025 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Requires DCA to establish online, Statewide database of local government unit legal notices.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 1-0)
Status: (Introduced) 2024-05-02 - Introduced, Referred to Assembly State and Local Government Committee [A4231 Detail]
Download: New_Jersey-2024-A4231-Introduced.html
Sponsored by:
Assemblyman ALEX SAUICKIE
District 12 (Burlington, Middlesex, Monmouth and Ocean)
SYNOPSIS
Requires DCA to establish online, Statewide database of local government unit legal notices.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
An Act establishing an online, Statewide database of local government legal notices and supplementing chapter 27D of Title 52 of the Revised Statutes.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. As used in P.L. , c. (C. ) (pending before the Legislature as this bill):
"Electronic publication" or "electronically publish" means the public advertisement of a legal notice in hypertext markup language format (html), portable document format (PDF), or an equivalent or successor language format or image format, on an official Internet website in accordance with P.L. , c. (C. ) (pending before the Legislature as this bill).
"Legal notice" or "notice" means a notice that a local government unit is required to officially advertise in a newspaper in accordance with law, rule, regulation, or court rule.
"Local government unit" means a municipality, county, or other political subdivision of the State, or any agency, board, commission, utilities authority or other authority, or other entity thereof.
2. a. The Department of Community Affairs shall establish and maintain a centralized online, Statewide database of local government unit legal notices. The purpose of the database shall be to provide a single, Statewide portal providing public access to all local government unit legal notices that are required to be officially advertised in a newspaper.
b. The department shall enable local government units to, without charge or fee, submit required legal notices to the database on a form and in a manner as determined by the department, and shall prominently post the database on the department's Internet website.
c. Following its entry of a legal notice onto the database, the department shall provide the local government unit which submitted the notice with a link to the electronically published notice.
3. Notwithstanding the
provisions of any other law to the contrary, whenever a local government unit
is required by law to publish a legal notice in one or more newspapers, the local
government unit may satisfy that requirement by delivering the legal notice, a
copy thereof, or a link thereto, to the Department of Community Affairs for
inclusion, without charge or fee, in the centralized, Statewide database of
local government unit legal notices, established pursuant to section 2 of
P.L. , c. (C. ) (pending before the Legislature as this bill).
4. This act shall take effect on the first day of the third month after the date of enactment, except that the Commissioner of Community Affairs may take any anticipatory administrative action in advance as shall be necessary for the implementation of this act.
STATEMENT
This bill requires the Department of Community Affairs (department) to establish and maintain a database for the purpose of providing the general public with a single, Statewide, access point for locating and viewing local government unit legal notices. Under the bill, whenever a local government unit is required by law to publish a legal notice in one or more newspapers, the local government unit may satisfy that requirement by transmitting the legal notice to the department for inclusion, without charge or fee, on the department's centralized database of local government unit legal notices.
The bill affords discretion to the department to determine the manner in which it may require a local government unit to submit legal notices to the department for inclusion in the database. The bill requires the department to prominently post the database on the department's Internet website.
