When was the last time you saw a water report for the city water in Mountain View? If you are a faithful reader of this publication, the last time you saw it in print here was June of 2021. In November, I noticed I had not printed it in a few years, so I called Mayor Charry McCann. She was elected comparatively recently and is working with a new city clerk as well. I assumed there was some mistake.
There wasn’t.
I learned the city of Mountain View stopped publishing new water reports in the newspaper in favor of printing an unwieldy URL on every utility bill instead. Mayor McCann could not tell me why they made the change, offering in response, “We would have to do further research to determine why the distribution method was changed, however, the current method reaches every account holder.”
If you are a utility customer in Mountain View, did you notice the URL was there? Did you look at it? The mayor said there is no way she knows of to track views of the URL.
I guess it’s possible every utility customer received their water bill, saw the URL, sat down at a computer or pulled up a browser on their phone, and typed www.dnr.mo.gov/ccr/mo4010551.pdf.
But I doubt it.
More likely, no one noticed it was there. And most consumers have no idea what’s in the water in Mountain View.
This is information that should not be difficult to find, but the city of Mountain View has made it harder for you to obtain.
And for what? Maybe to save money? It costs about $250 to publish the report in Howell County News.
As anxious as I'm sure we all are to conserve tax dollars and avoid unnecessary spending, measures that promote public notice are not the place to cut - especially not when every other water district in the county publishes in a newspaper. And the city of Mountain View did too until recently.
The idea behind laws that require publishing in a newspaper is that they contain content citizens are already consuming. Whether they know to look for a water quality report or not, readers will still receive the information. They don't have to go searching for it on a government website or at City Hall.
People who read newspapers want to know what’s going on. Newspapers are the ideal place to publish this information to make it easy for the public to access.
We are already the place you check to make sure your local government is behaving itself.
Newspapers are where information belongs.
And yet – here in Howell County, and across the state, your right to know is getting chipped away. Government dealings should be so transparent that you must choose to ignore them because the information is so readily available and widely promoted.
Some might say the internet is the right medium for information like this. It should be stored there, surely, for instant reference. But not for publication.
In terms of making sure the information reaches the public while it is news, newspapers are the right place.
In every issue of Howell County News, you will find information you have a right to know. For the information guaranteed to you by state law in this issue, see page 10.
Email Amanda Mendez at editor@howellcountynews.com.