Manhattan city officials are discussing ceasing the publication of legal notices in The Mercury and instead posting them on the city government’s own website, driving through a loophole in state law.
City manager Danielle Dulin proposed the switch during the city commission’s retreat Tuesday, saying that it would save $17,000 to $20,000 per year and streamline workflow.
Under Kansas law, cities are required to designate an official newspaper for publishing legal notices, which also go to the newspapers’ websites and a searchable database of similar notices from around the state and nation. A legal notice is an advertisement to notify the public about impending government actions, like a tax increase or a rezoning of property.
“The governing body of each city of the first class (populations over 15,000) shall designate by resolution a newspaper to be the official city newspaper,” the law states. “Once designated, the newspaper shall be the official city newspaper until such time as the governing body designates a different newspaper. No legal notice, advertisement or publication of any kind required or provided by any of the laws of the state of Kansas, to be published in a newspaper shall have any force or effect unless the same is published in a newspaper….”
Kansas attorney general Kris Kobach in 2023 issued a legal opinion that smaller cities ranging in population from 2,000 to 15,000 had the right to opt out of this requirement. This is because of a conflict in relevant state statutes, allowing some cities to simply declare their own rules.
“Home-rule provisions of the Kansas Constitution … allows cities to exempt themselves from nonuniform acts of the Legislature,” Kobach’s opinion said. “We conclude that a second-class city may exempt itself by charter ordinance. And, once having done so may then choose to publish official city business on its own webpage.”
It is not clear how the loophole applies to first-class cities like Manhattan But since Kobach’s opinion, some cities have pursued posting legal notices only on their websites. Wichita’s city council decided in 2024 to designate its website as the main site for releasing legal notices, while continuing to publish notices in print.
The Manhattan City Commission discussed this topic in 2025 but did not reach a consensus and never brought it up for a vote. Dulin brought up the idea and promoted it at Tuesday’s retreat, but commissioners took no vote because it was not a business meeting action.
Mayor Susan Adamchak told The Mercury afterward that the city will continue to pursue moving public notices out of the newspaper and onto the government’s own website.
“I’m pretty neutral, but I would say, you know, it’s unfortunate, but with The Mercury’s declining circulation, and I think it’s a very particular audience that looks for those announcements,” Adamchak said. “We are going to initiate a push to be communicating more about what the city is doing through our own communication methods, and I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to inform people more readily through that mechanism, rather than through the paper.”
Commissioner Jim Morrison said after spending 53 years as a lawyer, legal notices are important to him and he reads them in The Mercury, but is unsure if the public does.
“They’re important to me, but if it doesn’t get any public attention, well, it’s hard to know,” Morrison said in an interview with The Mercury. “I mean, it’s not a done deal by any means, but they brought it up, and I suggested we ought to consider it.”
Commissioner Larry Fox also told The Mercury that the city website is a better location for legal notices, but he said the city could spend as much or more money by buying other forms of advertising in the newspaper..
“Well, I think the thought behind it is that it would save the staff time and expense to publish that, to get it out to the public,” Fox said. “And we wouldn’t necessarily spend less with The Mercury, but we would do more in the way of just public education, maybe running ads, stories of things of interest for the city, upcoming events, you know, more educational type things that the public might get some use out of. I mean, I don’t think the public gets a whole lot of use out of those legal notices, because nobody reads them.”
Commissioners Karen McCulloh and Andrew Von Lintel could not immediately be reached for comment.
