URGENT CALL TO ACTION: Will Rep. Raymer Vote Against Transparency? Against Embry Legacy

Allyson Dix
Jobe Publishing Inc.

Transparency of our government should be at the forefront of every single elected official’s business.

Any elected official who hinders easy access to transparency is a red flag.

Such a red flag was waved when State Representative Rebecca Raymer’s vote in a House committee on February 20 when she supported House Bill 368, a move that calls into question how important transparency is within our local government to her, a striking contrast from the legacies of her predecessors.

HB 368 is designed to strip away a state mandate that requires local governments to publish their business in local newspapers in areas with less than a population of 80,000 people, allowing them to post things such as public notices, surplus actions, filed ordinances, and other business items onto their government-run websites. This population reference is law because large cities have low cost internet providers and easily-attained, free WiFi.

In 1958, the original HB 424 pertaining to legal advertisement law was implemented. One of the original sponsors and supporters of this law was Senator Carlos B. Embry, Sr.

Following in his father’s footsteps, CB Embry, Jr. served in the Kentucky House of Representatives and then as a Kentucky State Senator representing Muhlenberg, Hopkins, Ohio, and Butler Counties until he resigned in 2022 due to health reasons. Three days after his resignation, he passed away following a battle with cancer.

Both Embry, Jr. and his father were strong supporters of government transparency with both having experiences inside the newspaper industry. Because of this exposure, CB spoke of how his father witnessed banks foreclose late in the loan life of property, even family farms. Often, the bank would walk away with ownership or someone with inside information.

The Senators knew this requirement would protect all families by having public auctions publicized, a move that would help stop the injustices of earlier times. Legal advertising helps to keep them accountable because they know things will be disclosed.

It’s YOUR tax dollars that are paying for newspapers to print legal advertisements from local government, and while legal ads are not a significant amount of revenue for Jobe Publishing, it is certainly a source of valuable income for small, independent publishers.

Newspaper publishers were not invited to the table from the misguided representatives regarding this legislation, and they may not even know how this mandate could affect many communities. That’s why it’s critical to contact your state representative without delay.

If this law goes away like the Kentucky League of Cities is fighting to do, sooner or later, an unethical official will realize the public is not watching and corruption will once again become more prevalent. Jobe Publishing newspapers have uncovered many corrupt practices from elected officials, and some of those originated from the current state mandate for local governments to print legal advertisements.

What they fail to make known is that newspaper industries with paid subscribers are the only media with a quantifiable audited reach. They also fail to explain the mandate to be a paid newspaper with the USPS is to have a local office.

If this law goes away, there is no reason for 50 to 60 small community newspapers to keep an open office in small town Kentucky.

While the federal government and other states are working on incentives to help newspaper businesses that have been established for over 100 years, Rebecca Raymer and other representatives are turning their backs on the legacy left from the Embrys, our tax payers, and our oldest, ongoing businesses.

Jeff Jobe, Publisher and Founder of Jobe Publishing, said, “Morgantown is where we started and never allowed our growth to forget it.”

Jobe said the legacies set before the current representatives are being torn down.

“I never dreamed the district in which these two, fine senators served would have someone elected to support tearing down their legacies,” Jobe added.

Jobe said he spoke with Raymer’s husband at the time of her campaigning for office, who indicated that she knew how important this was at the time she was running for office.

“Despite this, Raymer has chosen to not return my calls for the second session,” Jobe said.

It is our hope alongside many other businesses in the newspaper industry that Rebecca Raymer and other representatives who support this bill will reconsider and honor the legacy of transparency left to them by the senators and representatives before them.

You can contact Representative Rebecca Raymer at rebecca.raymer@kylegislature.gov or by calling the hotline 502-564-8100 to leave a message for Raymer, or any other state representative.

You can also access contact information for your representatives at https://legislature.ky.gov/Pages/contactus.aspx

Allyson Dix is the Managing Editor for Jobe Publishing, Inc.’s Barren County Progress and Reporter for Edmonton-Herald News.