Changes to foreclosure notice procedures will not help transparency

The motivation to create new legislation in Nashville falls chiefly in one of three categories.First, an honest attempt to address a specific issue.Second, an attempt to curry favor with or reward support from a variety of lobbyists, big money donors or those with political muscle.Last, an attempt to gain attention or raise a legislator's public profile.We won't speculate as to the reason behind the legislation designed to change foreclosure notice procedures in Tennessee, but it's clearly not the first category.Currently, foreclosure notices are required to publish three times in a paper of record. The proposed legislation would reduce that requirement from three times to a single time.This reduces transparency for property owners, consumers and the public, This change will quite literally reduce the number of people who see a notice.The second section of the proposed legislation requires a posting be made online by a third-party internet posting company.The proposed legislation ignores the fact that the Tennessee Press Association already provides a third-party internet site that the state's newspapers use to provide notice online, as legally required, at no additional cost. The papers also post notices to their individual websites.The proposed legislation would replace the current and crystal-clear law with something that is incredibly vague.Who will the third party be? We don't know.Who will select the third party? It's unclear.Is the third-party site already live or is it one that will be constructed by the bankers and lawyers who have lobbied for this change? Take a wild guess.How will the public know to find the third-party site? We don't know.How will the rates be set? How much will the third-party site charge? If the third-party site is owned by the banks and lawyers, won't this just funnel money back into the pockets of the lobbyists behind the bill? Don't know. Don't know. And your guess is as good as ours.In full transparency newspapers charge a fee each time a foreclosure notice runs. But that raises the question of motivation.Is taking money that would have gone to members of the Fourth Estate, money that supports the Constitutionally protected Freedom of the Press, and redistributing it back to the bankers or lawyers or the government itself, something the framers would have wanted?A large portion of the purpose of your community newspaper is to keep you in the know about things going on in your government and your community. The newspaper's mission is about shining light into places where it is needed most.This move to reduce notice, on something as important to a community as foreclosures, is counterproductive to the ideal in which our federal, state and local governments are founded.If you are for more transparency in Tennessee, please contact your Tennessee State Representative or State Senator and tell them that foreclosure notices and all public notices should remain in your local newspapers.•••John Gullion is the managing editor of the Citizen Tribune in Morristown.