Monthly Archives: February 2012

How much per page would you pay for copies of a public record?

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Scott Blanchard

A York County agency recently tried to charge us 50 cents per page to make copies of a public document. The state’s open records office set the fee for copies at up to 25 cents for state agencies, although the … Continue reading →

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A reader’s questions, and answers, about the Pa. Sunshine Act

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Scott Blanchard

A reader checked out this post on Pennsylvania’s Sunshine Act and e-mailed me some good questions that I wanted to share: Question: Case law indicates that one-word explanations to justify an executive session do not suffice. The officials must be more … Continue reading →

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Old Pa. birth, death records available online beginning Feb. 15

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Scott Blanchard

Old Pennsylvania birth and death records will be accessible beginning Feb. 15, two state agencies said. The state health department and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission are putting birth certificates from 1906 and death certificates from 1906-1961 online at … Continue reading →

Posted in Online records | 3 Comments

Penn State’s openness website: Some transparency, some PR

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Scott Blanchard

I took a quick look at Penn State’s openness website that debuted yesterday. The school bills it as “a resource for the Penn State community and other stakeholders to find answers to their questions regarding ongoing investigations and related matters.” … Continue reading →

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Corbett: Penn State should comply with RTK law or risk state aid

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Scott Blanchard

I missed this last week, so apologies if you’ve already seen it, but: Interesting that Gov. Corbett used state aid as a tool to try to get Penn State and other state-related schools to “fully comply” with the state’s open … Continue reading →

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Some useful things you may not have known about Pennsylvania’s open meetings law

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Scott Blanchard

Here are some tips and info about the state’s Sunshine Act that might come in handy from an hour-long seminar given by Melissa Melewsky, legal counsel for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association. Some of these are things I didn’t know, so … Continue reading →

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Like poking around in lists and databases? Here’s a page for you

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Scott Blanchard

In the black bar atop this blog are tabs for specialty pages. We just added one called “Search for data.” Click it and you’ll see a lineup of searchable databases we’ve published, as well as links to other public-records information … Continue reading →

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