PNA Legal Hotline: Sunshine Act not violated if quorum not present
Q: Our township supervisors held a non-public
meeting where two of five current supervisors
and one supervisor-elect were present. Is this a Sunshine Law violation? Read More...
and one supervisor-elect were present. Is this a Sunshine Law violation? Read More...
Westmoreland County grants few open-records requests
Just one of every five open-records requests
submitted to Westmoreland County this year was
granted, according to the gatekeeper of those
documents. Westmoreland County this year fielded
requests from the public for about 500 documents,
the most ever received, according to county
officials.
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Bucks must release attendance records
December 24, 2009 | Filed in: Open
meetings |
Office of Open Records | RTK
request stories | Bucks
Co.
The County must comply with a Right-to-Know request
for employee attendance records, the state Office
of Open Records has ruled. The Pennsylvania Office
of Open Records ruled this week that Bucks County
must make public attendance records of county
employees who swipe their identification cards to
enter the courthouse.
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Open records or closed records? Sun-Gazette reporters find out
With the revamping of open records laws in
Pennsylvania earlier this year, the Williamsport
Sun-Gazette agreed to become part of an effort with
The Associated Press and other newspapers statewide
to see just how accessible government records are
in municipalities and school districts.
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Taxpayer costs add up in disputes over records
POTTSTOWN — As it turns out, freedom of information
is not free. The changes to Pennsylvania's Right to
Know Law come at a cost to taxpayers, say officials
with the Pottstown School District — $13,217 to be
exact -- and that's just the legal fees.
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III: Changes could be on horizon for Pa.'s records law
Many issues that have arisen during the first year
under Pennsylvania's revised Right-to-Know Law,
which may soon be amended. Should taxpayers have to
foot a part of the cost of massive requests? How
does the law work when the records are also
integral to an ongoing lawsuit? Should the
government be able to cancel a request it deems to
be a practical impossibility?
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II: New records law seems to bring change in attitudes
December 22, 2009 | Filed in:
AP Open Records Series | New RTK
Law |
Open
records | PaFOIC
| PNA
Legal
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A new test of how government
agencies respond to records requests shows that a
year after Pennsylvania's revamped Right-to-Know
Law took effect, it may be transforming attitudes
among public officials about the public documents
and information under their control. Over two days
this fall, reporters and others from 33
Pennsylvania newspapers, a TV station, and a
community college journalism class filed 274
requests for public records from police agencies,
local government offices and school districts in an
audit coordinated by The Associated Press.
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Right-to-know’ inquiries yield mixed results for staff
NORRISTOWN — The Times Herald partnered with The
Associated Press in its 2009 audit of the
Pennsylvania Right-To-Know Law by sending several
staffers on undercover assignments to various
municipalities, school districts and police
departments throughout the coverage area in early
October.
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II: Media organizations in the Pa. open-records audit
List of news organizations that participated in the
design and execution of the 2009 audit survey of
compliance with Pennsylvania's Right-to-Know Law.
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II: Rules for Pa. Right-to-Know Law survey
How the audit of compliance with Pennsylvania's
Right-to-Know Law was conducted.
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Centre County's open records response improves
During two days in early October, five surveyors
dispatched by the Centre Daily Times drove more
than 230 miles and traveled to 11 public agencies
in Centre County to test the state's almost
year-old Right-to-Know Law.
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Franklin Co. tests state open records law: 2 failures out of 5 info requests
Public Opinion participated in the 2009 Audit of
Public Access to Government Records, requesting
five items from five different departments with two
failures among them: Shippensburg Police Department
and Franklin County 911.
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Access to county public documents examined
As part of the Associated Press' Right-to-Know
Law audit, staff writers Kent Jackson, Coulter
Jones and Bob Kalinowski canvassed communities in
The Citizens' Voice's and Standard-Speaker's
coverage area over several days in October. They
made requests for what are supposed to be public
documents, and didn't identify themselves as
newspaper reporters until pressed. Here's what they
encountered:
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Statewide audit: 5 Daily News reporters find progress, but a few roadblocks
December 21, 2009 | Filed in:
AP Open Records Series | Open
records
Four years ago, when Christina Perrone began
showing up at Radnor Township meetings asking about
municipal spending, authorities in the Delaware
County suburb treated her like an unwelcome pest.
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I: Major elements of revised Pa. Right-to-Know Law
Major provisions of the Right-to-Know Law that took
full effect in January 2009.
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I: Reach of new Pa. FOI law gets tested in first year
December 21, 2009 | Filed in:
AP Open Records Series | New RTK
Law |
Open
records |
Office of Open Records | PaFOIC
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A wealth of information
about the actions and decisions of Pennsylvania
public officials has been pried loose in the year
since a broad expansion of the state's
Right-to-Know Law took effect. There are signs,
including a recent spot check of government
agencies, that the state is shedding its
long-standing reputation as a public-access
backwater.
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Opinion: New state rules helping to open up records
December 20, 2009 | Filed in: Opinion
| New RTK
Law |
Open
records | Terry
Mutchler |
Office of Open Records
Reporters across the state put Pennsylvania's
nearly year-old open records law to the test
recently in a fun but eye-opening project
spearheaded by The Associated Press.
Read More...
Right-to-know audit: Law is a challenge for small municipalities
So what happens when a government hires a
contractor to perform a task – engineering work,
making a grant request, zoning decisions – and the
contractor keeps the paperwork? How can people see
documents they are entitled to see? When dealing
with the smallest municipalities, governments with
only a few part-time employees, it can get
complicated.
Read More...
Right-to-know: Daily Record/Sunday News audit results
In October, the York Daily Record/Sunday News made
18 right-to-know requests as part of a statewide
audit of the new open records law that was led by
The Associated Press. Here are the results of those
requests. The records requested were public under
the law.
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Right-to-know audit: Police question request
The Newberry Township Police Department fulfilled a
request for a 24-hour incident log only after
requiring the requester to identify his employer.
Pennsylvania's Right-to-Know law does not require
requesters to identify their employer before being
given access to a record, according to the
Pennsylvania Newspaper Association's media law
counsel. A reporter from the York Daily
Record/Sunday News asked for a log of calls the
department responded to Oct. 3 as part of the
Associated Press' statewide audit of public access
to government records under Pennsylvania's new
Right-to-Know law.
Read More...
Sunshine suit filed against Eastburg School District
December 19, 2009 | Filed in: Sunshine
Act |
Open
meetings
The school board of East Stroudsburg Area School
District was sued in local court by a group of
citizens for not posting two items on its agenda
before they came up for a vote last month.
Read More...
Opinion: Shut down these records!
December 17, 2009 | Filed in: Opinion
| New RTK
Law |
Open
records | Addresses
| PIAA
| PNA
Legal |
Government transparency | Autopsy
reports
As 2009 comes to a close, we know already that the
Pennsylvania Newspaper Association will be fighting
three recently-introduced bills that are intended
to close more records, all of which were reported
from their original committees this week.
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Opinion: First, Obama's transparency directive. Gov. Rendell: You next?
So, Gov. Rendell, did you see what President Obama
did the other day? Will you follow his lead in
Pennsylvania? Obama told federal agencies to be
more transparent, publish more data, and in fact,
set deadlines for them to put as-yet unreleased
information online. I wanted to ask Rendell if he'd
do the same in Pennsylvania.
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Opinion: Softwear snafu delays public Web postings
HARRISBURG
- An effort to post a list of 66 Senate contracts
and leases on an open-records Web site has run into
lengthy delays. Last August, Senate officials said
they hoped to have the taxpayer-funded contracts
accessible on the state Treasury contracts Web site
within a matter of days. These contracts fall under
posting requirements in the state open records law
which took effect earlier this year. That remains
an elusive goal at year's end.
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Newspaper goes to court for documents
December 13, 2009 | Filed in: RTK
request stories | Open
records
The Pocono Record's fight for documents held by the
nonprofit once run by the man accused in the
sex-and-scholarship scandal at East Stroudsburg
University reached the state's second-highest court
Monday.
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Opinion: Citizen watchdogs make most of Right to Know Law
We
sometimes get asked what the average man or woman
can do to impact government and encourage reform.
On cynical days, it’s easy to feel helpless against
“the establishment.”
Besides voting (or running for office yourself), one of the best ways to get active in Pennsylvania is to take advantage of the state’s Right to Know Law. Read More...
Besides voting (or running for office yourself), one of the best ways to get active in Pennsylvania is to take advantage of the state’s Right to Know Law. Read More...
Judge: York Co. can withhold addresses in 911 response logs
York County President Judge Richard K. Renn ruled
Thursday the county is in compliance with the
commonwealth's Right-To-Know law when it refuses to
release addresses in emergency time response logs.
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PNA Legal Hotline: Court evidence presumed to be public
December 10, 2009 | Filed in: PNA
Legal | Judicial
records
Q: A civil lawsuit involving a local government
agency is pending and the parties have filed audio
and video evidence with the court. Is this evidence
public and can I get a copy?
Read More...
NCC journalism students examine Right to Know Law
Students at the Monroe Campus of Northampton
Community College's (NCC) Journalism and Society
class played an integral part in the Associated
Press (AP) Pennsylvania-wide audit, "Right to
Know." They were the only students to take part in
the project, which otherwise included media
professionals.
Read More...
Open records funding boosted
Despite a belated state budget that included
numerous funding cuts, the state Office of Open
Records has been given a significant funding
increase. State Rep. Timothy S. Mahoney, D-South
Union Township, who spearheaded passage of the new
open records law that took effect on Jan. 1, said
the important office received a $240,000 increase
in funding under the current budget, boosting the
office's allocation to $1.25 million.
Read More...
Review drops appeal of open records case against Judge Smith
The Daily & Sunday Review will not appeal
further the denial by the state of the newspaper's
right-to-know law request for access to the
"inappropriate material" found two years ago on
computers used by Bradford County Common Pleas
President Judge Jeffrey Smith.
Read More...
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Attorney: Sewer bill secrets ‘alarming’
SHARON —The legal fight put up by the Sharon
Sanitary Authority to keep a Herald reporter from
reviewing delinquent sewer accounts is “alarming
and unreasonable,” Herald attorney William G.
McConnell said in a document recently filed in
Mercer County Common Pleas Court.
Read More...