Little things can make a big difference. Printed public notices in newspapers are little things, but they make a big difference when keeping government accountable to citizens and taxpayers.
It is no surprise the Oklahoma Municipal League (OML) has introduced legislative proposals to eliminate printed notices in newspapers. The OML wants you to swallow their concept that a notice on a city Web site is sufficient when they want to annex your property, build a dump next to your homestead or have an election.
But Oklahoma legislators understand the value of local newspapers and the printed public notices that are required to be in the paper. Oklahomans also value printed notices in local newspapers.
In a recent statewide survey, Oklahomans were asked if notices should appear only on a government Web site. Seventy percent said no; 12 percent said yes. Those are percentages everybody can understand.
Oklahomans were also asked if local governments should be required to print notices in local newspapers. Sixty-eight percent said yes, and 16 percent said no.
Some people want you to believe newspapers and their readers are nearly dead. This is not the case. In fact, newspaper readership is high — especially in local areas — and newspaper readers are the most informed active citizens in town. You're proving that point right now!
Here are a few nasty truths about city-operated Web sites and cable channels. They don't carry any bad news about the city. It's all fluffy stuff about how wonderful things are in the city.
Go visit your city Web site. Search for stories about the embezzling employee, police brutality cases, questionable expenditures by city management or legal actions against the city. Let me know if it is on the home page. You may have witnessed a local miracle.
Here's another problem. City-operated Web sites don't push notices out to anyone. While accessible to everyone with a computer, they notify no one.
The annexation or eminent domain notice intended to warn citizens the city is about to take their property just sits on a computer server until you get the urge to cruise their Web site. But local newspapers print and push out these notices, making them widely available to everyone in the area.
Another fundamental flaw of digital public notice is that they can be altered or deleted. If there is an error, the city can simply fix the notice to their liking. Then the city can swear on its own authority that the notice was always correct and ran for the right amount of time. How convenient.
That is not so with ink-on-paper notices in the local newspaper. Ink-on-paper notices cannot be hacked or altered. Newspapers are an independent third party and provide a notarized affidavit the notice ran as required by law.
You can also find public notices in newspapers as far back as you need to look. I can't find a Web site I looked at last week, and when I do, the information has changed or been deleted.
These legislative proposals for online-only public notices — in a medium controlled by the cities — are not in line with the thinking of Oklahomans, and certainly not in line with the founding principles of this country. Government should be accountable to the people, and local newspapers are one of the few defenses citizens have to make sure that happens.
Cities should be required to warn you of their actions in the very medium they sometimes despise — the local newspaper that monitors and reports on their actions, both good and bad.
Public notices in local newspapers make a big difference in keeping your city government accountable. That must be why cities want them eliminated from your local newspaper.
If they say it is the cost, then I urge citizens to ask for the city checkbook and review how they spent every penny of your tax money. My guess is citizens would find other expenses that could be cut before accountability notices are eliminated.

Thomas is executive vice president of the Oklahoma Press Association.