Opinion: Taking care of wrong business
OPINION
The [Scranton] Times-Tribune
Some state lawmakers have taken a pause from the time-consuming process of not passing a state budget in order to return to the perennial pursuit of limiting public access to public information. What you know, after all, can hurt them.
Just seven months after Pennsylvania finally implemented a public records law that created broader access to government data, lawmakers predictably have begun an effort to scale it back.
The former law was the worst in the country because it required anyone seeking a record to prove it was indeed a public record. The new law is the exact opposite and, therefore, correct. It creates a presumption that most records are public and requires a government to prove otherwise in order to prevent its release.
In response to some rulings by the new Office of Open Records upholding public access to records, some lawmakers want to start building a list of individual exemptions from disclosure.
One bill in the House, for example, would add birth dates to the list of information that public agencies could withhold from disclosure.
Another bill in the Senate would exempt volunteer fire companies and similar entities from the Right to Know Law. That would pre-empt the existing law and the Office of Open Records, which found that volunteer fire companies are subject to the law because the public safety role they fulfill is a governmental function.
The public nature of that function is underlined by the state's role in providing tax credits for volunteer firefighters and other assistance. That is exactly what the government should do, but serving a public function cuts both ways.
Meanwhile, many lawmakers continue to pursue initiatives to needlessly keep the public in the dark about local governments. Several bills would allow governments to stop placing meeting notices and other legal ads in newspapers and, instead, place them on their own Web sites.
Newspapers, including The Times-Tribune, make money on legal ads, which collectively cost governments less than 0.05 percent of their aggregate operating budgets. And, while the lawmakers claim to be acting in the name of saving money for local governments, the end result would be much less public awareness of government meetings and a wide array of business.
There is nothing to stop local governments from putting their legal notices online now, but most do not do so in order to avoid the costs of maintaining a Web site. But a Web site operated by the newspaper industry, www.MyPublicNotices.com, posts thousands of legal notices not only from across Pennsylvania, but from across the nation, at no cost to governments.
Allowing government posting in lieu of print placement would diminish, rather than enhance, distribution of public information. It would disburse the information to more than 2,500 individual Web sites, in effect burying information.
Web traffic studies show that government sites are among the most infrequently visited sites. Local newspaper Web sites, on the other hand, almost always are among the top few sites in any particular region.
And, while lawmakers inevitably profess allegiance to older voters and the poor, demographic studies show that those very groups are the most likely not to have Internet access. More than 30 percent of Pennsylvanians do not have access.
The issue isn't money; it's disclosure. Lawmakers should preserve it.
The [Scranton] Times-Tribune
Some state lawmakers have taken a pause from the time-consuming process of not passing a state budget in order to return to the perennial pursuit of limiting public access to public information. What you know, after all, can hurt them.
Just seven months after Pennsylvania finally implemented a public records law that created broader access to government data, lawmakers predictably have begun an effort to scale it back.
The former law was the worst in the country because it required anyone seeking a record to prove it was indeed a public record. The new law is the exact opposite and, therefore, correct. It creates a presumption that most records are public and requires a government to prove otherwise in order to prevent its release.
In response to some rulings by the new Office of Open Records upholding public access to records, some lawmakers want to start building a list of individual exemptions from disclosure.
One bill in the House, for example, would add birth dates to the list of information that public agencies could withhold from disclosure.
Another bill in the Senate would exempt volunteer fire companies and similar entities from the Right to Know Law. That would pre-empt the existing law and the Office of Open Records, which found that volunteer fire companies are subject to the law because the public safety role they fulfill is a governmental function.
The public nature of that function is underlined by the state's role in providing tax credits for volunteer firefighters and other assistance. That is exactly what the government should do, but serving a public function cuts both ways.
Meanwhile, many lawmakers continue to pursue initiatives to needlessly keep the public in the dark about local governments. Several bills would allow governments to stop placing meeting notices and other legal ads in newspapers and, instead, place them on their own Web sites.
Newspapers, including The Times-Tribune, make money on legal ads, which collectively cost governments less than 0.05 percent of their aggregate operating budgets. And, while the lawmakers claim to be acting in the name of saving money for local governments, the end result would be much less public awareness of government meetings and a wide array of business.
There is nothing to stop local governments from putting their legal notices online now, but most do not do so in order to avoid the costs of maintaining a Web site. But a Web site operated by the newspaper industry, www.MyPublicNotices.com, posts thousands of legal notices not only from across Pennsylvania, but from across the nation, at no cost to governments.
Allowing government posting in lieu of print placement would diminish, rather than enhance, distribution of public information. It would disburse the information to more than 2,500 individual Web sites, in effect burying information.
Web traffic studies show that government sites are among the most infrequently visited sites. Local newspaper Web sites, on the other hand, almost always are among the top few sites in any particular region.
And, while lawmakers inevitably profess allegiance to older voters and the poor, demographic studies show that those very groups are the most likely not to have Internet access. More than 30 percent of Pennsylvanians do not have access.
The issue isn't money; it's disclosure. Lawmakers should preserve it.
