City of Lake Wales to Use County Website to Post Public Notices, Decision Receives Unanimous Vote from City Commission
by James Coulter
Public notices from the City of Lake Wales will be uploaded onto the Polk County website, now that the City Commission has voted unanimously to do so.
At their regular meeting on Tues. Aug 20, Lake Wales City Commissioners voted unanimously 5-0 to approve an ordinance that would permit the city to post public notice on Polk County’s publicly-accessible website.
The city’s decision is compliant with Florida’s HB 7049 (2022), which, according to City Manager James Slaton, who wrote in the city agenda memo on this item, “empowers municipalities to utilize county websites for public notices.”
The County website (https://polkcounty.column.us) was created through an ordinance (Ordinance 2024-041) adopted by the County Commission in July. The website was created through a partnership with D-R Media (Polk News-Sun), according to the city memo, “to ensure accessibility.”
Currently, the City of Lake Wales spends approximately “$30,000 annually on legal ads in declining print media,” Slaton wrote. As such, the city would be saving time and money by posting their public notices through the county website.
Moreover, this change will allow the city’s public notices to become more accessible to residents, especially since the county website is “ADA compliant” and “allows for email notifications tailored to user preferences.” As such, the city’s ongoing developments and decisions would become more transparent.
City Commissioner Carol Gillespie, who voted in favor of the ordinance, made a tongue-in-cheek comment that the City of Lake Wales is “moving into 2004…with the rest of the county” with this ordinance approved.
