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State Headlines
Plan on joining us on February 20th in Santa Fe
NMPA will host a legislative breakfast the morning of Friday, February 20th. The breakfast will start at 7:30AM at the Rio Chama. A board meeting and reception will be held the night prior. NMPA will have a board meeting on Thursday February 19th at 3:00 in Santa Fe at the New Mexican If you are interested in attending, please let us know.
Look for emails to RSVP and to see if your legislator will be attending.
The session is under way
Committees have formed, bills are being introduced and the 2015 regular session is off and rolling. Follow the action on the NM Legislature website.
What are we tracking?
Here is a damaging bill that threatens the due process of the seizure of a renter's property in self-storage units,
SB311, Amending the self-storage lien act, introduced by Sen Lisa Torraco would remove the requirement to publish any notice in a local newspaper before a sale takes place. Only three bidders need to show up for a sale to take place. And in contradictory language, sales could even take place online (Apparently no one has to show up). Instead of publishing a notice that the public will see, this bill allows the owner to advertise in any "commercially reasonable manner". This is a bad bill any way you look at it. It is identical language from a national self-storage association based out of D.C. that has been introduced, and defeated, in several states around the country in the last year or so. Now, it is our turn.
Notices in newspapers are only required after two attempts by mail go without contact being made and bills paid. It is not mandatory once a lien process begins.
Please contact Sen Torraco and members of the Corporations committee to let them know of the importance of these notices as they appear in print under current law. It is scheduled for Monday Feb 2nd, so please reach out to the appropriate legislators today or Monday morning.
For facts on self-storage notices please read the following item, here.
There are several weeks left before we reach the deadline to introduce legislation and we will continue to monitor and notify the membership of any new items of concern.
NMPA website
When you have a moment, go visit www.nmpress.org. Your association has made a few changes to its website. On the homepage we have added a news feed from member newspapers and our twitter feed in the panel now shows member tweets. It has made the homepage current with up-to-date news and added relevant information for visitors to the website.
Several enhancements have been made to the directory. The landing page shows a map with locations of all member newspapers. It also has a link to a printable directory of all members with basic contact information. Individual directory listings include: specs, links to websites and social media pages, contacts, an about us section and, what we think is pretty cool, an image of your front page to show everyone what your newspaper looks like. Check out your local listing and if you want links added, an about us description edited or added, or updates made to any of the contacts just let us know. Did you know there is also a calendar of events? You can find it on the right panel and upcoming events are highlighted.
Are you uploading? (Another reminder)
There are two places you should be uploading: all legal notices to our public notice website, which is now a requirement of NMPA membership, and all of your pages to NewzGroup - which get us tear sheets faster and you paid faster. If you have questions on how to upload contact us right away. Another great benefit of NewzGroup is that it provides you with a digital archive of all of your publications. We have had more than one newspaper experience server issues and the only back-up available was through this program - at no cost. What a great insurance benefit to have if you need it.
Advertising Networks Would you like $280.00 for every 2x2 ad you sell into the network? How about another $65.00 for every classified ad? It's easy and your staff can start doing it today. One 2x2 ad a week would mean $14,560 a year in commissions. It may take some effort but it is easy money there for the taking.
NMPS offers advertising clients a classified and 2x2 network throughout the state to help reach customers on a low budget. They are but a few of the many services we provide. Newspapers that participate in the networks run ads on a weekly basis and have the opportunity to receive revenues in two easy ways: receive payments on a bi-annual basis from a pool of revenue from the 2x2 network and receiving commissions on any ads sold into either network. NMPS actively sells clients into these networks on a weekly basis, but you can too! Download and distribute the sales sheet to everyone on your sales staff.
Next month we will be sending out bi-annual checks from profits earned in the 2x2 network to all participating members. You will have the option to donate that check back to the Foundation. We encourage you to consider this option so that we may continue to support future programs, such as the high school journalism workshop.
Are you a vendor servicing the newspaper industry? Or, as a member newspaper, do you have a vendor to recommend to the rest of the association?
Then consider joining or renewing your associate membership to NMPA. We have a made a few changes to associate membership and offering some more benefits to help you reach our membership and to become a part of our association. Contact NMPA to join today. See here for details.
Attorney General Releases Redacted HSD Audit
FOG applauds the decision of New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas to release the Behavioral Health Provider Audit's Final Report. FOG's initial review of the report confirms what FOG has asserted all along - that the report is a public record not subject to any exception under the Inspection of Public Records Act Read more Full Report
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