If classified ads were a backbone of the newspaper business, then the very center of the spine was the public notice. Mandated by laws and courts, these often long recitations of detail were to give official notification, to any who were interested, of the legal intents and actions of both government entities and companies that found themselves under some appropriate regulation. But the town of Apex, N.C. must be giving publishers a shudder, as the town moves at least some public notices to its own web site and out of the local newspaper, saving $13,000.