The City of Burnaby has decided to publish its important civic notices through digital means only, after the print edition of the Burnaby NOW community newspaper ceased print publications on Aug. 10.
Instead of publishing advertisements in a newspaper, the city will release the notices on its website and through its email newsletter.
Council unanimously approved the changes at its meeting on Monday, Aug. 28.
Provincial legislation requires municipalities in B.C. to publish statutory public notices for matters such as public hearings, elections, changes to zoning bylaws and the disposition of public land.
With the decline of print media, however, the province began allowing cities to publish their notices in places other than newspapers as of 2021.
The requirements on where a city can publish a notice include:
- The publication should be factual and occur at least once a month
- The notices must be legible, timely and allow people to consult notices more than once
- The publication should be accessible
The city says moving the notices online will result in $62,000 in savings per year on advertising costs.
The city's website received about 2.9 million visits in 2022 and has a target of three million visits in 2023, according to the city's financial plan.
The email newsletter has 15,255 subscribers with a target of 19,000 this year.
Burnaby already posts its notices physically at city hall and will continue to do so.
With the end of the New Westminster Record's print edition, the City of New Westminster has also decided to post its notices on its website and email newsletter, along with posting the notices physically in its two public libraries.
Regarding posting in libraries, Burnaby staff said in a report analyzing public notice methods that "a natural disadvantage of using any physical location is that residents would have to travel there."
Burnaby decided not to post the notices in libraries, despite staff noting libraries and community centres are frequently visited by youth, seniors and unhoused community members, people "who are underrepresented on certain Internet formats."
Staff said, "the manual posting of public notices may leave room for human error or timing conflicts."
