Lucky us! Praise for MPA’s Hotline Attorney

We take pride in telling our sources that our Missouri Press Association attorney is THE expert on Missouri’s open meetings law. For me, as a publisher of a small group of papers, this is a blessing. I know Dan has our back.”

Peggy Scott, 2025 MPA President

I awoke one recent Tuesday morning to an email sent at 1:36 a.m. to me and our Leader editor from the person in a story we are following. She sent a “cease and desist” letter asking us to not publish.

My first thought was, “That’s not happening. Of course we will publish.” My second though was, “We better check with Dan.”

Dan Curry is Missouri Press Association’s Legal Hotline Attorney, and he fields dozens of calls with questions from newspapers like ours across the state each month. As MPA board president I have access to a list of those Legal Hotline calls. As you might expect, most are about open meetings and Sunshine Law issues. Local governmental officials often don’t understand or follow those laws.

On that Tuesday, Dan confirmed that a cease-and-desist letter is really just a warning, a specific request from one person to another, that if we go ahead, report the news and do our jobs, she might ask the court to intervene.

Dan reviewed our story, the earlier stories we published in this case and the letter. My first instinct was correct. This story is a doozy – asking for $50.5 million from the circuit court and 11 others associated with our county’s legal community. We published our story about the lawsuit. We haven’t heard back – yet. But we are prepared.

MPA’s Legal Hotline Attorney is one of the benefits we enjoy as members of this fine organization.

Through the Legal Hotline, we can ask questions about the process, like how much a local city should charge us for documents or when we might expect to get answers?

At the Leader, we sometimes reach out to add a bit of legal firepower to our requests for information. In our community, we take pride in telling our sources that our Missouri Press Association attorney is THE expert on Missouri’s open meetings law. In fact, we helped draft it.

For me, as a publisher of a small group of papers, this is a blessing. I know Dan has our back, like Jean Maneke before him. Thanks, Dan.

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Day at the Capitol

Thank you also to the Missouri newspaper representatives who traveled to the Missouri Capitol in January to visit with members of the legislature. It’s important for our legislators to know who we are and how important our newspapers are in their communities. Visiting lawmakers in Jefferson City is a great way to learn more about the legislative process. Also, I believe developing relationships starts with getting to know who is on the other side of that phone call or email or text. 

As we talked with our legislators, one of the key issues we brought up is the need for public notices to be published in newspapers. Missouri Press Association armed us with a one-page explanation so we could concisely let our legislators know.

Here are the top five reasons that we should publish public notices in local newspapers. I’ve added my own take on why these are important. I invite you to share your ideas as well.

1. Notices should be published by an independent party. That’s us. Local newspapers work to let our readers know what’s happening. We are watchdogs of government, and it’s a job we take seriously.
2. Notices should be accessible to the public. Newspapers publish on a regular schedule, and readers know where and when they can expect to get their papers. Imagine if public notices went to some website someday, posted by someone and being available for some time.
3. Notices in newspapers are authenticated by the publisher. Before we publish, we verify the source of the information, proofread and take care that the details we share with readers are accurate.
4. Newspapers are capable of being archived. That’s right. Newspapers are a permanent source of information. Ask genealogists, historians and researchers where they get information from decades past. It’s certainly not from a website somewhere maintained until someone forgets to post or loses the password.
5. Notices in newspapers offer transparency. Requiring publication in newspapers forces officials to share news about projects, budgets and changes with everyone, not just those who might know where and when to check out a website. That’s what we want. Government and community decisions made in the light of day, so everyone knows where the money is being spent and what’s on the agenda.