In case you missed it, here’s our story on how the York County prothonotary’s office is making civil case records available online.
The good thing is you won’t have to travel and possibly pay for copies anymore. The downside is the vendor the county used suggested they build it so it’s compatible with Internet Explorer and not more commonly used browsers.
The county also said it’s working to make more public records available online — a good thing, says the YDR’s editorial page.
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 law allows some other agencies to set their own fees. But that fee has to be reasonable and in line with typical costs in your area (it’s in the law, linked to here).
I found an online pricing sheet for Staples that lists standard black and white copies at 10 cents each. So to pay 50 cents a copy would be like paying $125 for a state inspection or $103.50 for a hunting license.
Not gonna happen.
If you’re faced with such a ridiculous price for copies, you can definitely invoke the “reasonable fee” part of the law, and note that it should be in line with what it costs to make a copy at a local business. (Of course, the OOR’s 25 cents per copy seems awfully high in that regard, but that’s yet another story).
Meanwhile, if you wanted to appeal the cost for copies, here’s a case that addresses that. And remember, agencies cannot charge you for staff time it takes to look up records.
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 specific than simply saying “personnel,” for example (or if citing litigation, must cite an existing case or notice that someone is threatening to sue.) Where did you find this information, as PA’s Sunshine Act does not state that executive sessions ‘must’ give detailed explanations on why they met?
Answer: The case that covers the specificity requirement for executive sessions is Reading Eagle Co. v. Council. Excerpt: “By requiring that the executive session can only be held when reasons are given, the General Assembly intended that the public be able to determine from the reason given whether they are being properly excluded from the session. We agree with the rationale stated in Hinds County that in order to effectuate the purpose of requiring that reasons be given, the reasons stated by the public agency must be specific, indicating a real, discrete matter that is best addressed in private. …
“City council contends that this outcome is unduly burdensome. Even if we agreed with City Council’s proposition, the General Assembly, based on its findings that public decision-making is vital to the functioning of the democratic process, has chosen to impose this burden on public agencies.”
Pennsylvania Newspaper Association counsel Melissa Melewsky said that “when dealing with litigation, the agency is required to announce the party names and docket number if the lawsuit is pending. If the lawsuit is threatened, the agency must announce the cause of action (employment discrimination, personal injury, etc.).”
The decision does not spell out specifics on what agencies are supposed to say. But you can challenge them with that case law if they simply say “litigation” or “personnel,” because the court’s decision obviously requires more. Melewsky gives these examples of how an agency can fulfill the requirement:
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 the health department’s website; once on the site, click on “Birth and Death Certificates.” Each year, a new year’s worth of records will be added to the site.
Records before 1906 will be at the county level, according to a news release from the state.
The online records will also be available at the state archives, 350 North St. in Harrisburg. They’re being made public under a law, which Gov. Tom Corbett signed in December, that makes birth certificates public records 105 years after they’re issued and death certificates public 50 years after they’re issued.
The state says researchers who go to the state archives should know the year of the event, spelling of the name they’re looking for and/or the county of birth or death.
Access is free, but it will cost $3 to order non-certified copies through the health department’s website. The state archives could charged copying fees, or research fees for mailed or emailed search requests.
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.”
Some initial thoughts:
Overall you have to appreciate Penn State’s efforts here, and it’s probably to be expected that an institution that has considered itself to be above public scrutiny, for the most part, doesn’t have it exactly right yet. But it’s a step in the right direction.
What do you think?
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 records law.
Of course, Penn State and the other schools could retort that they are complying with the law; because they have a special exemption, they’re not subject to the law to the same extent as truly public agencies. There’s sentiment in the state legislature to change that.
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 I thought they’d be good to share:
Have any questions about the law? Let me know. I’ll get and post the answers here.
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 such as deeds and restaurant inspections.
We’ll continue to publish searchable databases, usually accompanying stories, and we’ll keep collecting them all here as a resource.
Do you know of any data you’d like to see us get and publish? Let us know and we’ll work on it.
Sunshine Review‘s study of state government salaries looked at the most populous areas in several population-heavy states, including Pennsylvania.
One interesting thing it found: Pennsylvania was the state with the “quickest response rate” to right-to-know requests. Eighteen local governments fulfilled every request, the group said. That’s good to hear, given state and local agencies’ frequent reluctance to part with information.
Sunshine Review’s report doesn’t spotlight Pennsylvania for any other reason. It didn’t have the highest or lowest salaries (or salary range) in the survey. No Pennsylvania state employees were among the 10 highest paid local government officials between 2008-2011.
In Pennsylvania, 50 employees earned more than $150,000 — sixth lowest among the eight states in the survey (California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, Texas and Wisconsin were the others).
More on the survey:
Super PACs are one of the stories of this year’s political campaign season, with court rulings that allow corporations to contribute as individuals would and allow the groups to spend as much money as they want.
I was curious about whether any York countians, or York County businesses, had contributed to super PACs so far. So I checked contributions to 28 of them — all the ones on this opensecrets.org who’s who list, as well as all of the groups that had raised more than $1 million according to opensecrets.org.
One York County person showed up as a contributor: physician Nicholas Pandelidis of Spring Garden Township. In August, he gave $2,500 to the Club for Growth Action, which says its mission is to “beat big-government politicians.” Pandelidis is a frequent voice on the YDR’s opinion page and letters to the editor.
Opensecrets.org’s website reported Club for Growth had raised $5.6 million, fourth most among super PACs. It had spent more than $4 million “against” Democrats — $2.6 million against Joe Sestak, who lost a bid for the U.S. Senate to Republican Pat Toomey.
