Reading officials violated Sunshine Law in closed meetings, lawyer says
By Don Spatz
Reading Eagle
Reading officials violated the state's Sunshine Law by meeting privately to discuss missed deadlines in a huge sewage-treatment plant project, a media association attorney said Thursday.
A 2004 consent decree - forced on the city by state and federal environmental agencies and signed by a federal judge in 2005 - requires it to meet dozens of deadlines in the preparation process.
City officials admit they've missed a few of those and may face hefty penalties. City Council and the administration have held monthly executive sessions since April to decide what to do about it.
The Sunshine Law allows elected officials to hold closed meetings for several reasons, including litigation, and city lawyers say the consent decree is litigation.
But Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Publishers Association, disagrees.
"A final consent decree ends a lawsuit, so the litigation exception is no longer valid," she said.
She said city officials can't go behind closed doors - as they most recently did Monday night - just because the city may be facing penalties.
"Penalties are not litigation," she said.
Mayor Tom McMahon, who was not at Monday's meeting, said he will ask city attorneys for a clarification of the law.
Councilman Dennis M. Sterner attended Monday's meeting with three other council members and said they were following the advice of attorney Keith Mooney in conducting it in private.
Rich Manieri, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice that pushed for the consent decree, said the department has been aware of the missed deadlines.
"We are monitoring the situation very closely, and are working with the city to resolve the issues," he said.
He declined to elaborate.
The decree requires the city to build a new plant because the plant on Fritz's Island had a history of spilling raw sewage into the Schuylkill River.
The city's ultimate deadline is to get the new plant in operation by November 2012.
Reading Eagle
Reading officials violated the state's Sunshine Law by meeting privately to discuss missed deadlines in a huge sewage-treatment plant project, a media association attorney said Thursday.
A 2004 consent decree - forced on the city by state and federal environmental agencies and signed by a federal judge in 2005 - requires it to meet dozens of deadlines in the preparation process.
City officials admit they've missed a few of those and may face hefty penalties. City Council and the administration have held monthly executive sessions since April to decide what to do about it.
The Sunshine Law allows elected officials to hold closed meetings for several reasons, including litigation, and city lawyers say the consent decree is litigation.
But Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Publishers Association, disagrees.
"A final consent decree ends a lawsuit, so the litigation exception is no longer valid," she said.
She said city officials can't go behind closed doors - as they most recently did Monday night - just because the city may be facing penalties.
"Penalties are not litigation," she said.
Mayor Tom McMahon, who was not at Monday's meeting, said he will ask city attorneys for a clarification of the law.
Councilman Dennis M. Sterner attended Monday's meeting with three other council members and said they were following the advice of attorney Keith Mooney in conducting it in private.
Rich Manieri, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice that pushed for the consent decree, said the department has been aware of the missed deadlines.
"We are monitoring the situation very closely, and are working with the city to resolve the issues," he said.
He declined to elaborate.
The decree requires the city to build a new plant because the plant on Fritz's Island had a history of spilling raw sewage into the Schuylkill River.
The city's ultimate deadline is to get the new plant in operation by November 2012.