Opinion: Your access to information is under attack
OPINION
BY CHIP MINEMYER
Johnstown Tribune-Democrat
We are just past halfway through the first year of Pennsylvania’s new Open Records Law and the public’s access to information is again under siege.
The state Office of Open Records is charged with deciding who’s right when you ask for a record from your local government agency, if there’s a dispute.
In other words, is the agency legally bound, or not, to give you the information you request?
Teri Henning, general counsel for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, says there are more than 500 cases of individuals or agencies requesting public documents that were ruled on and are now on appeal. Several of those have been sent to the courts, she said.
As we know, legal rulings become the precedent for future legal rulings. So, a ruling that keeps the public – either as individuals or through the media – from accessing information has far-reaching implications.
“At this time, the authority of that (Open Records) office is in play,” Henning said Thursday at a gathering of newspaper editors in Harrisburg.
Just as frightening and dangerous is activity in the state Capitol.
While our lawmakers and the governor are busy not reaching a budget agreement, they are considering ways to restrict your access to public information – with the ink barely dry on the Open Records Law.
Lawmakers and interest groups are pushing for limitations to the law.
Currently, you can access virtually any piece of information – except private documents such as personnel files – from your local municipality, school district or county government, unless that agency can show that it has legal standing for withholding the information.
And the onus is on the agency to prove that a document should remain hidden.
“Several bills have been introduced recently that are designed to weaken the Open Records Law,” Henning said.
“They’re busy on every front right now.”
In addition, there is some support in the General Assembly for passage of a bill that would move public legal notices out of newspapers and off their Web sites and onto government-controlled Web sites. Action on the legal notices bill will likely come this fall, Henning said.
“We have a client that was told by their senator that if it gets to the Senate floor, it will pass,” she said. The bill has less support in the House.
The logic behind the bill is that moving the legal notices out of newspapers would save municipalities and other government organizations money, because they could post them on their own Web sites at little or no cost. There is a fee for legal advertisements in the Classifieds section of a newspaper, as well as on a newspaper’s Web site.
PNA’s attorneys have proposed reducing the cost of legal ads to keep them published in newspapers of general circulation in local communities, as is now the case.
But the small cost savings of moving legals out of newspapers would bring two major problems:
* Government information would be under complete control of government – which should scare you to death.
And ...
* Residents would need to go looking for legals on the Web sites of each different government group, rather than finding them right there in the daily Tribune-Democrat Classifieds at www.tribdem.com.
That would mean searching the sites of every borough or township, county or school district in which you live, work or do business to find out when meetings will be held and what action might be taken.
“It’s not really about money at all,” said Tim Williams, PNA’s president and chief executive officer. “It’s about moving that information to the Internet and controlling it.”
Residents who want to read legal notices online already can – at newspaper Web sites.
And as our Readers’ Forum submissions recently show, not everyone prefers to read such material online, nor is everyone equipped to do so.
“Their argument,” Williams said, “is that whoever wants to see them will go to (the government) Web site, which is exactly the opposite reason for having public notices. They are designed to inform the public.”
As residents and voters, you all deserve to know what decisions your lawmakers are considering and what the implications are for you.
If you believe that government should operate in the light, that it should not keep secrets from the people it represents and works for, then these issues should matter to you.
BY CHIP MINEMYER
Johnstown Tribune-Democrat
We are just past halfway through the first year of Pennsylvania’s new Open Records Law and the public’s access to information is again under siege.
The state Office of Open Records is charged with deciding who’s right when you ask for a record from your local government agency, if there’s a dispute.
In other words, is the agency legally bound, or not, to give you the information you request?
Teri Henning, general counsel for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, says there are more than 500 cases of individuals or agencies requesting public documents that were ruled on and are now on appeal. Several of those have been sent to the courts, she said.
As we know, legal rulings become the precedent for future legal rulings. So, a ruling that keeps the public – either as individuals or through the media – from accessing information has far-reaching implications.
“At this time, the authority of that (Open Records) office is in play,” Henning said Thursday at a gathering of newspaper editors in Harrisburg.
Just as frightening and dangerous is activity in the state Capitol.
While our lawmakers and the governor are busy not reaching a budget agreement, they are considering ways to restrict your access to public information – with the ink barely dry on the Open Records Law.
Lawmakers and interest groups are pushing for limitations to the law.
Currently, you can access virtually any piece of information – except private documents such as personnel files – from your local municipality, school district or county government, unless that agency can show that it has legal standing for withholding the information.
And the onus is on the agency to prove that a document should remain hidden.
“Several bills have been introduced recently that are designed to weaken the Open Records Law,” Henning said.
“They’re busy on every front right now.”
In addition, there is some support in the General Assembly for passage of a bill that would move public legal notices out of newspapers and off their Web sites and onto government-controlled Web sites. Action on the legal notices bill will likely come this fall, Henning said.
“We have a client that was told by their senator that if it gets to the Senate floor, it will pass,” she said. The bill has less support in the House.
The logic behind the bill is that moving the legal notices out of newspapers would save municipalities and other government organizations money, because they could post them on their own Web sites at little or no cost. There is a fee for legal advertisements in the Classifieds section of a newspaper, as well as on a newspaper’s Web site.
PNA’s attorneys have proposed reducing the cost of legal ads to keep them published in newspapers of general circulation in local communities, as is now the case.
But the small cost savings of moving legals out of newspapers would bring two major problems:
* Government information would be under complete control of government – which should scare you to death.
And ...
* Residents would need to go looking for legals on the Web sites of each different government group, rather than finding them right there in the daily Tribune-Democrat Classifieds at www.tribdem.com.
That would mean searching the sites of every borough or township, county or school district in which you live, work or do business to find out when meetings will be held and what action might be taken.
“It’s not really about money at all,” said Tim Williams, PNA’s president and chief executive officer. “It’s about moving that information to the Internet and controlling it.”
Residents who want to read legal notices online already can – at newspaper Web sites.
And as our Readers’ Forum submissions recently show, not everyone prefers to read such material online, nor is everyone equipped to do so.
“Their argument,” Williams said, “is that whoever wants to see them will go to (the government) Web site, which is exactly the opposite reason for having public notices. They are designed to inform the public.”
As residents and voters, you all deserve to know what decisions your lawmakers are considering and what the implications are for you.
If you believe that government should operate in the light, that it should not keep secrets from the people it represents and works for, then these issues should matter to you.
