A state audit concluded that 19 contracts awarded by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board violated the open-meeting law. This is just one more indication that the law requiring the public's business to be conducted in public has no teeth.
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The relatively new Gaming Control Board is all too prone to the same old Harrisburg business-as-usual practices that make Pennsylvania the "State of Corruption." The board violated the state's Sunshine Act 19 times while approving 23 professional services contracts, worth $7 million-plus, without public votes from 2006-09, according to a new state audit. Read More…

Auditor General Jack Wagner is taking on charter school funding, the gaming control board contracting and the governor’s bond deals. In doing so he has managed to give much needed specifics to the broader conversation in our state about how we spend public funds and how some agencies may choose to do business. Read More…

The state's gambling board has a penchant for secrecy, and Auditor General Jack Wagner and Treasurer Robert McCord want it to open up to the public. Read More…

Even as many politicians in Harrisburg attempt to turn back the clock by limiting the public's hard-won access to public records, Lackawanna County Recorder of Deeds Evie Rafalko McNulty has exactly the right idea.
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As a long-time advocate for open government, I applaud the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision in Alekseev v. City Council of the City of Philadelphia. As a former school board president, however, I see why some might find it a bit naive. Read More…

Who knew that all that "We the people" stuff could be so easily forgotten just a few blocks from where it started? Thanks to a recent court ruling, Philadelphia's commoners will now have an opportunity to speak at regular meetings of the City Council. But it took nothing less than the highest court in the Commonwealth - overruling more than a half-century of backward practice, two lower courts, and a dissent by three of its seven justices (including the court's two Philadelphians, Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille and Justice Seamus P. McCaffery) - to bring this revolutionary concept into our own house of lords. Read More…

Gov. Ed Rendell should veto legislation that allows Pennsylvania’s coroners to deny the public and the media access to records. Read More…

We find it interesting -- and somewhat darkly humorous -- that Pennsylvania's coroners seem a bit confused as to the nature of their mandate. Given their endless talk of safeguarding the feelings of bereaved families, it's almost like they wanted to be psychologists, instead of doctors, before settling for the most influential medical career that doesn't require a medical degree or professional standards of conduct. Read More…

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell signed 22 bills into law Tuesday, but left at least one critical piece of legislation untouched for more review — a bill that essentially turns coroners’ reports into state secrets, allowing the release only of minimal information, such as names and causes of death. Read More…

Pennsylvania is on the verge of taking a big step backward when it comes to transparency and openness. On the last day of its lame-duck session, the General Assembly voted to approve changes to the County Code that would eliminate access to virtually all information produced by coroners. Read More…

Just before legislators ended their lame-duck session, they slammed the door on public access to records of a key law enforcement officer: Pennsylvania's county coroners. Gov. Ed Rendell needs to pull out his veto pen to keep the change from becoming law. Read More…

In this age where everyone has a camera, where every part of our daily lives seems to wind up on the Internet and where the presence of a camera is barely noticed, we were surprised to discover two incidents this past week where a government body has tried to restrict the use of recording equipment at their meetings. Read More…

At last week’s Colwyn Borough Council meeting, Council President Tonette Pray announced that no one would be allowed to take photographs at any meeting of the council without prior authorization. Her decision was explained by the borough’s solicitor, who said that cameras and picture-taking would distract council members from their business. I present the theory that council itself is a distraction from the proper governance of the town and its business. Read More…

It seems like such a small thing. But if Pennsylvania's revised Right-to-Know Law is to represent public access to public records, there need to be rulings such as the one made last week.
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On November 4, 2010, the Commonwealth Court in its decision, State Employees' Retirement System v. Office of Open Records, No. 152 C.D. 2010, by Senior Judge Flaherty, denied a claim by SERS for labor charges in complying with a Right-to-Know request as a cost "necessarily incurred" under 65 P.S. § 67.1307(g). Read More…

Even as the state Legislature ponders serious rollbacks to the state's 2-year-old Right to Know Law, the state Commonwealth Court has rendered a wise decision that should dissuade those who want to restrict public access to public information. Read More…

One of the most fiercely contested issues arising after the 2008 revision of Pennsylvania's Right-to-Know Law is whether home addresses of public employees are public records. Read More…

Here we go again: bills to amend the 2008 Right to Know Law are again on the move in our state capitol, just a few weeks before the November election, and after a one-year lull in any work on open records legislation. In the Senate, the new law's sponsor, Sen. Pileggi, is now sponsoring Senate Bill 1469, a bill that would exempt volunteer fire and rescue companies, significantly cut back on the records available from government contractors, prevent the public from viewing bills from sewer and other public authorities, and charge a member of the public just to look at a public record. Just introduced on September 20, it moved quickly, and is scheduled for a Senate vote today. Read More…

Governments in Pennsylvania have been forced to operate in a more-open manner since the start of last year because an updated Right-to-Know Law forces them to make public more documents about how they spend public money and how they act on the public's behalf. It was only a matter of time, though, before lawmakers sought to amend the law, as governments complained that being forced to be so open is such a strain. Read More…

Pennsylvania may have a new Right to Know Law, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that many bureaucrats and elected officials have no intention of following it. Read More…

Sometimes, a final decision isn't exactly final. That's the case with Pennsylvania's revamped open records law. The law, intended to grant the public greater and easier access to public documents, allows government bodies to appeal decisions — called final determinations — by the state Office of Open Records. And sometimes that results in records remaining closed because petitioners cannot afford to hire lawyers to defend appeals. Read More…

Pennsylvania, with its woefully corrupt state Legislature and untold units of local government that also are no strangers to corruption, needs an effective Sunshine Law more so than most other states. Read More…

The "good old boys (and girls)" in Harrisburg are covering each other's butts again. We aren't supposed to notice, because a House-passed bill imposes higher fines for violating the open-meetings "Sunshine Act." That's all we are supposed to notice: Higher fines. But the House, which is in bed with school directors and teacher unions, tacked on a provision allowing secretive closed meetings for "safety and security" reasons.
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The devil is in the details and, if you're the pessimistic type, you can find Lucifer's fingerprints all over a small item in legislation passed by the state House five days ago. Read More…

It’s a pretty good law. But having a good law and having a universally good “open government” attitude across the state are two different things. Pennsylvania’s new “Right to Know Law” took effect Jan. 1, 2009, more than a year ago. Has it been successful? It depends whom you ask and how you measure success when it comes to citizens being able to keep track of what their government is doing.
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The past few weeks have seen an increase in activity at the Capitol that causes concern. We were discouraged on March 10, when the full House, reviewing a bill intended to strengthen sanctions dished out (theoretically) for violating the Sunshine Act, voted to insert a ‘safety and security’ exemption for going into executive session, for school boards. Read More…

Today marks the beginning of Sunshine Week, a celebration of open government — and an exhortation to demand it ceaselessly. Open government is a core principle of our American form of democracy. Government employees — both elected officials and non-elected workers — are directly accountable to the people. In a citizens' government, citizens and the press are the watchdogs, making sure officials remain accountable to the people. Keeping access open to officials and to public documents is essential if citizens are to maintain their freedom.
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Just over a year old, Pennsylvania's Right to Know Law remains a work in progress. That fact is clearly evident through a court case brought by our colleagues at WGAL-TV. In what should be a clear-cut situation, the television station has been forced to go to the Commonwealth Court in an effort to determine not if a record is public - on that point everyone agrees - but when it should be released.
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