Grand jury charges official, calls for Sunshine law changes
April 5, 2007
By PATRICK WALTERS
Associated Press Writer
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A grand jury on Thursday called for a dramatic strengthening of the state's right-to-know law as it recommended charges against a suburban township supervisor accused of trying to bribe a developer.
Between September 2002 and November 2004, public officials in Haverford Township failed to keep the public – and other elected officials – informed about certain efforts to develop the site of the former Haverford State Hospital, the grand jury found.
The panel also accused supervisor Fred C. Moran of asking a developer to give $500,000 to the township in exchange for Moran's ensuring that the project got zoning approval.
Township officials routinely met in private in 2003 and 2004 to discuss proposals to develop part of the hospital site so that they could ensure that the development stayed under their control, according to the grand jury report. The officials' motive, the grand jury said, was ''private political ambition.''
''The grand jury has also found that many of the statutes designed to protect the public's right to be informed of governmental actions, such as the Sunshine Act, are illusory and fail to protect the public,'' the grand jury wrote.
READ THE HAVERFORD GRAND JURY REPORT
Township officials also ignored a requirement that they advertise efforts to sell the property, according to the report. A message left with the township was not immediately returned Thursday.
Moran is charged with bribery, theft and obstruction of justice. A home listing for him was unpublished and he could not immediately be reached for comment by The Associated Press. The grand jury said he also agreed, without the public's knowledge, to pay $600,000 to an attorney out of a $5 million down payment on the property paid by the developer.
As a result of the investigation, the grand jury recommended that the Legislature make a series of changes to the Sunshine act, including:
— adding penalties and administrative enforcement provisions;
— strengthening and broadening criminal penalties; and
— giving administrative enforcement authority to the state ethics commission.
Attorney General Tom Corbett said the case indicates how far some officials will go to advance their own private interests.
''It also clearly shows that Pennsylvania's Sunshine Act and other related laws are ill-equipped to combat this problem and are desperately in need of enhancement,'' Corbett said in a statement.
Elam Herr, assistant executive director of the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors, said he worried that criminal penalties could deter people from running for office. ''I have a problem with anything that would keep people from running for office,'' Herr said. ''Should there be penalties? Maybe.''
© 2007 The Associated Press — Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.