Hernando County Still Not Mailing Public Notices, Columnist Reports Week Five

Five weeks into a running public dispute with Hernando County, columnist Rocco Maglio reported Thursday that not a single resident who submitted a written request for mailed public notices has received one, despite what he describes as a clear statutory obligation under Florida law.

Maglio's column, published in the Hernando Sun on March 12, traces a paper trail that began months before his first formal request. After spending several months trying to determine the correct procedure for requesting mailed legal notices, he sent a written letter to the Hernando County Administration on February 3 asking to receive notices by mail per Florida statutes.

The response he got did not fulfill that request. A letter dated February 17 from the County Clerk of Court arrived explaining how to sign up for email notifications. The letter also stated that residents wishing to receive notices in another format should contact a listed party by phone at 202-713-5613, a number with a Washington, D.C. area code that raises questions about whether the correct contact information was ever provided.

The jurisdictional confusion did not stop there. County Administrator Jeff Rogers had previously instructed Maglio to mail requests to the Hernando County Administration. Maglio reports that he was later told all of the notices had actually been routed to the Clerk of Court's office, suggesting the two offices have not aligned on which is responsible for fulfilling mailed notice requests.

Maglio writes that the County Attorney has already agreed the relevant Florida statute requires the county to provide a mailed notice option, a position the Hernando Sun has reported in prior installments of this series. Yet that legal interpretation has not translated into action. Several dozen written requests from other residents have been submitted to the county, and as of the column's publication, none of those residents had received a mailed notice.

The county has not provided a public explanation for the gap between the County Attorney's stated interpretation and the county's apparent practice. Key questions remain unanswered: which office holds responsibility for fulfilling mailed notice requests, what internal procedure governs distribution, and whether any resident who submitted a written request has ever been sent a physical notice. Those questions have now gone five weeks without a documented answer from Hernando County officials.