SENATE COMMUNITY AND URBAN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

SENATE, No. 3905

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED:  may 12, 2025

      The Senate Community and Urban Affairs Committee reports favorably Senate Bill No. 3905.

      This bill requires the Department of Community Affairs (department) to establish and maintain a database for the purpose of providing the general public with a single, Statewide, access point for locating and viewing local government unit legal notices.  Under the bill, whenever a local government unit is required by law to publish a legal notice in one or more newspapers, the local government unit may satisfy that requirement by transmitting the legal notice to the department for inclusion, without charge or fee, on the department’s centralized database of local government unit legal notices.

      The bill affords discretion to the department to determine the manner in which it may require a local government unit to submit legal notices to the department for inclusion in the database.  The bill requires the department to prominently post the database on the department’s Internet website.