It's rare for our newsroom's coverage to be about us personally, but that proved the case this week.
Once again, the topic of whether Rocky View County should advertise its public notices in our pages was back at council, thanks to a notice of motion brought forward by Coun. Kevin Hanson at the Nov. 9 meeting. This marks the second time Hanson has introduced this particular proposal, after he did so in November 2020.
With a new-look council a year later thanks to the Oct. 18 election, Hanson is hopeful the new members of council will be more open to the idea of advertising once again in the Rocky View Weekly.
The County first voted to discontinue municipal advertising in the Rocky View Weekly in July 2020, opting instead to use its website and social media channels as its go-to sources for notifying residents of public notices, bylaw approvals, subdivision applications, and other County-related business.
There's a certain irony – or hypocrisy – that so many RVC council candidates used our pages to advertise their election campaigns, yet were not in favour of advertising RVC's public notices last year.
It goes without saying we would be in favour of the County reinstating its advertisements in our newspaper. As the local paper of record for the region, we have a vested interest in the goings on of Rocky View County. With a larger audience than the County's website or social media channels, we feel we offer the preferred platform to share information with the public.
Speaking on Nov. 9, Hanson brought up some solid reasons why the municipality should advertise in the newspaper. While most people have internet connection these days, he noted RVC still has plenty of rural residences and communities where internet connection is spotty or virtually non-existent. For these households, using the County's website to be informed is not ideal.
We'll be watching closely when the discussion comes to RVC council on Nov. 30.
