Oops! We didn’t read our own legal notices

We owe an apology to the St. Charles Parish Council. We didn’t read its legal advertising published this past month about receiving bids for official journal of the parish on Monday.

We were supposed to submit a bid in May for publishing them during the coming 12 months. But with hurricane season coming, etc., etc., we forgot to do it.

So the time for submitting it has been extended through June. Thank you.

Legal advertising is a very important part of this newspaper. It supplements our news by letting people know what their public bodies are doing in an official way.

If they need contractors for specific jobs, it must be advertised so all businesses capable of performing the work can bid. It also lets people know what properties are being sold for tax delinquencies on the courthouse steps.

If zoning changes are sought on particular pieces of property, it let’s neighbors know about it. They can then plan to attend the hearings on them and support or oppose them. And there are many other items on the agendas of governing bodies that certain people should know about.

In the future, this newspaper will play up legal advertising by publishing front page notices of its content in that issue. It will alert the readers to what they are missing if they don’t read them. And hopefully, it will get the public to read them regularly.

We promise to read the legal notices we publish in the future more closely. And we ask our readers to join us in keeping up with the activities of government through that means.

It’s important in a democracy.