When Gov. Ed Rendell signed the state's new open records law last year, he said, among other things:
Those would appear to be two very different Ed Rendells.
A Rendell spokesman defends the governor, saying all is not as it's made out to be in Mutchler's letter.
Read for yourself and see what you think.
- "Since taking office in 2003, I've worked very hard to make Pennsylvania open for business. With the signing of this bill, now it's also open for inspection."
- "Pennsylvania's business is the people's business except when certain information holds the real potential to harm the public good or a person's privacy."
- "Better access to government documents means a more informed citizenry. The commonwealth will operate better and will be more accountable now that the light of public scrutiny is shining brighter than at any time in our history."
Those would appear to be two very different Ed Rendells.
A Rendell spokesman defends the governor, saying all is not as it's made out to be in Mutchler's letter.
Read for yourself and see what you think.
What is it about Pennsylvania and its local and state governmental bodies that they just don't get it? Are the territorial desires so primordial as to prevent elected officials from willingly cooperating with each other and their constituents? Is it a lack of education in the primary fundamentals of government? No wonder the state is fifty years behind in so many areas.
Jo,
Thanks for your comment. It's amazing, isn't it, to keep hearing stories about how much trouble government agencies have understanding that what they do is open to the public, with some valid exceptions.
Even now, we're at work on stories about people struggling to get public information from a municipality, and the county withholding (for the moment at least) valuable information from the public.
Hopefully, as time goes on, the culture will change.
I now believe, after living back in PA for nine years after an absence of more than fifty years, that change will come only if and when the state loses its rurality. Why I believe this is because when my family first moved to Arlington, Va. many years ago, that county and nearly all the counties in MD & VA that surround Washington, D. C. were mish-mashes of farming communities, gas stations, pawn shops, body and radiator shops, "downtown" shopping districts--you name it. The entire area was a sleepy, southern hick town. As those entities left and areas began to change, along with the changes came higher levels of education in both government and business, particularly in local governemnts. I have written before, as an example, that when you have individuals run for school boards who get elected and then run the shool systems, who are probably better equipped to operate their farm equipment and fix their pick-ups than they are to educate children, then we have not only the multiplicity of educational systems in the state, but also poorly functional ones. I'm a huge fan of the Rusk Report and it is so disappointing to see little of its fine suggestions placed into action in York County. Yorkers do not cotton to changes very well at all and the changes that need to come will not happen in my lifetime. I could write chapters on this subject just as Mr. Rusk has done, but what will it change? Moving back to Pennsylvania was the equivalent of entering a time warp.