Open government, transparency are things we should all agree on
November 11, 2008 |
MainLine.com
– As I see it
By Parker Sherry
"Ensuring open and honest government is a bedrock principle of democracy. It can only be attained through the unfettered exchange of information between citizens and their government. A citizen's right-to-know fosters accountability, prevents abuses of power and promotes trust in government."
Those actually aren't my words. I lack such eloquence. Rather, those words come directly from the Office of Open Records Web site.
"I think this is a good law. I think it is a sea change in Pennsylvania for open government." I have to confess, again, that those aren't my words. Those comments are from Terry Mutchler, executive director of the Office of Open Records. Mutchler has stated that, "At the end of the day, we hope to open government in a way that it has not been opened before in Pennsylvania." Her "goal is to pry loose a lot of records that wouldn't have gotten loose." According to Mutchler, Pennsylvanians "have been starved of public information for a long time," a problem she pledges to improve.
To her credit, Mutchler has also stated that, "If I make a mistake, it's going to be on the side of openness," and that "If there's an area that could go either way, we're coming down on the side of openness."
The Radnor Township School District would be prudent to adhere to Mutchler's common-sense rationale. The district's new Right to Know Act policy as it stands currently fails to follow suit. As Mutchler has rightly acknowledged, there are going to be certain instances under the Right to Know Act where whether a request is subject to disclosure will not be clear-cut. It would be easy to insert a provision into the proposed policy where, without waiving any sort of future positions the district might take on whether a document is subject to disclosure, a member of the school board (or a panel of board members, for instance some sort of subcommittee of three board members) would be responsible for overseeing denials of Right to Know Act requests. If that board member or panel weighed the pros and cons of disclosing a document and felt that, on balance, a document should be disclosed, it makes sense for the board to insert such a procedure into its policy that could save potentially rather large litigation costs (not to mention district employees' valuable time) and simply hand over documents to a requester.
Instead, the policy and the spirit behind that policy certainly suggest that under no circumstances will anything be released that doesn't clearly fit a technical definition of a public record under the Right to Know Act.
Of course, the Right to Know Act is a floor, and not a ceiling, and amounts to what a governmental agency must disclose. Of course, any governmental agency can disclose items that perhaps might not at the end of the day be deemed subject to disclosure (in those areas that "could go either way," as Mutchler acknowledges), but should be disclosed in order to demonstrate transparency and responsibility.
In this past presidential campaign, both parties should be applauded for proposing more transparency and less secrecy in the federal government. Sen. McCain promised that, if elected, he would take questions from members of Congress, much like the prime minister of Great Britain, and hold weekly press conferences to take questions from reporters. Sen. Obama was instrumental in establishing the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which requires complete disclosure to the public of all entities that receive federal funds.
Open government and transparency are the types of issues that people from all areas of the political spectrum can unite behind and support. Because when a governmental body like the Radnor Township School Board makes a decision, as many of my great elementary school teachers from Radnor stressed to me when I was a student, it is critical that they show their work.
Parker Sherry is a Radnor Township resident.
By Parker Sherry
"Ensuring open and honest government is a bedrock principle of democracy. It can only be attained through the unfettered exchange of information between citizens and their government. A citizen's right-to-know fosters accountability, prevents abuses of power and promotes trust in government."
Those actually aren't my words. I lack such eloquence. Rather, those words come directly from the Office of Open Records Web site.
"I think this is a good law. I think it is a sea change in Pennsylvania for open government." I have to confess, again, that those aren't my words. Those comments are from Terry Mutchler, executive director of the Office of Open Records. Mutchler has stated that, "At the end of the day, we hope to open government in a way that it has not been opened before in Pennsylvania." Her "goal is to pry loose a lot of records that wouldn't have gotten loose." According to Mutchler, Pennsylvanians "have been starved of public information for a long time," a problem she pledges to improve.
To her credit, Mutchler has also stated that, "If I make a mistake, it's going to be on the side of openness," and that "If there's an area that could go either way, we're coming down on the side of openness."
The Radnor Township School District would be prudent to adhere to Mutchler's common-sense rationale. The district's new Right to Know Act policy as it stands currently fails to follow suit. As Mutchler has rightly acknowledged, there are going to be certain instances under the Right to Know Act where whether a request is subject to disclosure will not be clear-cut. It would be easy to insert a provision into the proposed policy where, without waiving any sort of future positions the district might take on whether a document is subject to disclosure, a member of the school board (or a panel of board members, for instance some sort of subcommittee of three board members) would be responsible for overseeing denials of Right to Know Act requests. If that board member or panel weighed the pros and cons of disclosing a document and felt that, on balance, a document should be disclosed, it makes sense for the board to insert such a procedure into its policy that could save potentially rather large litigation costs (not to mention district employees' valuable time) and simply hand over documents to a requester.
Instead, the policy and the spirit behind that policy certainly suggest that under no circumstances will anything be released that doesn't clearly fit a technical definition of a public record under the Right to Know Act.
Of course, the Right to Know Act is a floor, and not a ceiling, and amounts to what a governmental agency must disclose. Of course, any governmental agency can disclose items that perhaps might not at the end of the day be deemed subject to disclosure (in those areas that "could go either way," as Mutchler acknowledges), but should be disclosed in order to demonstrate transparency and responsibility.
In this past presidential campaign, both parties should be applauded for proposing more transparency and less secrecy in the federal government. Sen. McCain promised that, if elected, he would take questions from members of Congress, much like the prime minister of Great Britain, and hold weekly press conferences to take questions from reporters. Sen. Obama was instrumental in establishing the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which requires complete disclosure to the public of all entities that receive federal funds.
Open government and transparency are the types of issues that people from all areas of the political spectrum can unite behind and support. Because when a governmental body like the Radnor Township School Board makes a decision, as many of my great elementary school teachers from Radnor stressed to me when I was a student, it is critical that they show their work.
Parker Sherry is a Radnor Township resident.