Recently in denials Category

The state's Office of Open Records has told Carroll Township it must prove why plans for a proposed development should be kept from the public.

The township denied a request from Carroll Citizens for Sensible Growth for a traffic impact study, stormwater management plan and architectural design standards for the proposed Village at South Mountain, a housing/commercial development across from Logan Park, near the Route 74 intersection with Route 15. The township says the documents will be used in "predecisional deliberations" and invoked a right-to-know law exception.

CCSG appealed to the OOR, which wrote to the township Aug. 21 and noted that the new right-to-know law makes documents public unless an agency can prove they should be private. "Kindly explain any and all factual and legal basis for withholding these records under the 'internal predecisional deliberation' exception," the open records office wrote.

The township has until Monday to respond. After that, the OOR will rule on the appeal.

The denial, appeal and OOR's letter are all here.

A recent story in the Dillsburg Banner quoted Carroll Township manager Dianne Price as saying that the township didn't want to keep the plan's details from the public, but agreed to it as part of the settlement of an ongoing conflict about the proposed development.

I just read reporter Nickie Dobo's story about a York County resident who asked to see a copy of the working budget for South Eastern School District.

No, the district said, we won't give you that. It's only a draft, and it would be a "disservice to the to the community and to the district" to release it.

A disservice to the community? How exactly? I'm thinking the whole point of a resident wanting to see a working budget is to see how the district is creating its budget, and that it's not all that helpful to only be able to see the finished product.

Anyway, you see that kind of reasoning sometimes when agencies deny records -- what amounts to an agency telling a person that they can't handle the document they're requesting, or wouldn't understand it, or something similar. South Eastern's business manager, for example, said the public shouldn't see the document because "it's not accurate."

I assume that by "accurate" she meant "final." But even if she meant that there were mistakes in the draft budget, again, what harm can come from  this kind of public oversight?  There seems to be an assumption that the requester, upon being told that it is a draft budget subject to change, would not understand and would assume the budget was final.

I'd love to have a discussion here on why it seems that some agencies believe people can't be trusted to look at what their government is doing.

 The state's Office of Open Records granted the requester's appeal in this case. The district is considering whether to appeal. This is one to watch.

Sorry for back-to-back posts about open records issues from the region, but a co-worker here at the YDR alerted me to this after reading my previous entry.

In Luzerne County are under investigation for judges who sent kids to jail for kickbacks, a prison warden who spend big bucks at a strip club while at a conference, no-bid contracts, school boards selling jobs and ... oh goodness, at this point it might just be easier to say what the feds AREN'T investigating.

So anyway, on to the open records issue. The county government was, apparently, paying health care benefits for people who were not eligible for them. So, my former co-worker and desk mate, county reporter Michael P. Buffer (yes, the son the legend) submitted a Right-to-Know request to see who all is getting these benefits.

Well, the county turned him down, citing HIPPA (the Health Information Privacy Act). As any reporter will tell you, this is the standby for agencies who don't want to release records. They use it for an excuse for everything. I've had schools tell me they can't release student information because of HIPPA. And the law only applies to health care providers!

The newspaper is going to appeal. This will be an interesting case study. It really seems this should be a matter of public record -- how else can the public audit who is getting paid what?

It's fascinating (and encouraging) to see Pennsylvania residents using the new right-to-know law and trying to make it work for them.

Demetra Stamus of Carbon County tried something interesting when she appealed the county's denial of 911 audiotapes and other records related to a car crash in which her brother died.

As part of her appeal, she noted that the right-to-know law indicates that agencies can (my emphasis) release information that falls under an exemption if they believe the public interest in the material "outweighs the interest in non-disclosure."

She argued that sets up a mandatory test by an agency, as opposed to simply opening the door for an agency to release information that's exempt from the RTK law. And, she said, Carbon County didn't do the test.

She lost; the open records office "does not find this argument persuasive," it wrote in denying her appeal on May 1. It continued, "The OOR cannot compel the county to undertake a discretionary exercise."

So, agencies can apply that test, but they don't have to (my emphasis again). It's tough to argue that agencies should be mandated to do the test every time they issue a denial; but it also is hard to fathom that any agency would voluntarily give up information that it didn't have to (they seem to work hard enough as it is to try to keep public information private).

You would like to think, however, that if the public benefit outweighed the need to keep information private, an agency would release the information. Guess we'll have to just wait and see.

Daily Record/Sunday News staffer Ted Czech reports in today's paper that although the state's new open records law (read it here) makes it possible for residents to get 911 time-response logs -- and thus assess the performance of their emergency responders -- York County's definition of a time-response log makes it impossible to do that.

 The county decided it would not include addresses, or even geographical locations, in its time-response logs. (We've appealed the county's decision to the state's open records office.)

 Czech's discovery of that fact, and the response to it, has prompted some fascinating reaction from county officials, others quoted in the story and people who have read his story:

 1. A reader commented that perhaps the county won't release the addresses over concern for patient privacy, cites the Health Insurance Privacy and Portability Act, and suggests we invest in a scanner if we want to know the addresses.
   
    First, we have scanners (as do many others in York County). But you can't compile a database from listening to scanner calls that would allow you to assess response times over a particular geographic area, or during a particular time frame, etc. The county does, as part of its function, and residents have a right to that information.

York Township supervisors will no longer be able to e-mail each other with impunity.

The state Office of Open Records ordered the township to archive all supervisors' e-mail after a resident's request for e-mails had to be turned down because it was not in the possession of the township.

Previously, all e-mail was pinged to a private e-mail address, including a business address that the state has no control over. The resident wanted the e-mail because he believed there was some improper correspondence.

There are dozens of appeal determinations on the Office of Open Records Web site.

Two more are from York County. If you will remember, two Shrewsbury Township residents were the first in the state to visit the open records office this year.

The recent appeals deal with York County EMA numbers and Glen Rock records. Both are worth checking out. The EMA info was granted, in part. The Glen Rock info was denied. 

Some of Shrewsbury Township's supervisors have been grumpy about the state's new open records law.

They say residents are abusing it, creating too much work for office staff. They are also unhappy with the 25 cents per-page fee, saying it is not enough to cover actual costs. In an effort to make that point the township is taking the time to post all the records requests online.

I filed a request for budgets that was only partially filled until I complained.

Click on the jump to read the actual e-mails I exchanged with the Shrewsbury Township Right-to-Know Officer. It's a fun read.

 The Johnstown Tribune-Democrat has been trying for seven years to see the autopsy report of a woman who was beaten to death in 2001, but the report had not been made public.
 
 The case remained unsolved, and the newspaper renewed its request after the state Supreme Court ruled in January that autopsy records are public. The Blair County coroner said she'd release the autopsy report.
 
 But before she could, Bedford County District Attorney Bill Higgins asked a judge to seal it.
 
 Wednesday, he won in court. Judge Thomas Ling said that to release the report would "end the prosecution" because it would reveal details only the killer could know. And the details in the autopsy report, Ling said, "constitutes almost all of the evidence in this case."
 

The following editorial appeared in the Jan. 22, 2009 York Daily Record:

No one could fairly call Tom Kelley soft on crime.

As a prosecutor, he helped put away murderers, rapists, drug dealers, you name it. As a judge, he's not known for coddling criminals.

All of which make his recent courtroom comments in an assault case quite remarkable. During jury instructions, Judge Kelley seemed to be essentially leading the jury toward acquittal on the most serious charges against William K. Knight Jr.