Not now, Paul, try back later
Jun 27th, 2007 by JamieB
When I first read about Paul Kattner’s request for public records from Hazleton Township, I was suspicious.
Kattner was a former township employee who freely admits that one reason he asked for the records was politics: “I was thinking about running (for township supervisor) in the primary,” Kattner told the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader. “If I run, I always like to have information to back me up. Then it became intriguing to me as to why I was being given the runaround.”
Here we go, I thought. This is just the kind of case that foes of reform will latch onto as evidence that the real reasons people want access to public records have nothing to do with the public good. They are far more likely to want to gain a political advantage or settle a score or just find out how much money somebody makes.
Then I looked at the list of things Kattner had requested:
• Employee, engineer and solicitor salaries and retainers and the cost of their benefit packages for the past three years
• Fees paid to supervisor, zoning, planning and recreation board members for the past three years
• Cost of and time off for schooling for all employees for the past three years
• Last two annual reports of the planning commission and whether the planning secretary receives benefits and is eligible for a pension
• Number of subdivisions processed and the amount of fees received for the past three years
• Names and certifications of each employee of the code and building inspection offices
• Overtime paid to and mileage and personal expenses claimed by each supervisor for the past three years
• Reports on cars tagged as abandoned for the past two years
Who could possibly argue that these are not public records? Well, for starters, the township’s solicitor.
Charles Pedri, the Times-Leader reported, wrote Kattner that he was reviewing whether providing the salary information on township employees “violates their rights to privacy.” He also said the secretary’s efforts to get the records would cost Kattner about $285.
Oh, and the precedent? Veblen will love this – Pedri told a reporter he was waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on the Joe Paterno case before deciding whether to comply with the salary information requests.
Melissa Melewsky of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association shredded that argument in a hurry: The Paterno case, she told the Times-Leader, “does not deal with public employees; it deals with employees of an organization not covered by the Right to Know Law who chose to opt into a state agency retirement system … that is covered by the Right to Know Act.” Moreover, she said, Penn State lost in Commonwealth Court, “and that case is the law unless and until the Supreme Court changes it.”
Speaking of politics, the newspaper reported that Kattner ran for supervisor in 2003. He lost the race and, according to a lawsuit he filed, he then lost his job as the township’s planning director and building inspector. The township settled for $40,000 . . . one more of a seemingly endless string of examples of great ways to spend our tax dollars.
I’m not suggesting that a new open records law will solve all the problems of local and state politics. But it seems like a good place to start.
Excerpts from Mark Guydish’s column in Monday’s Times-Leader:
I like Attorney Charles Pedri. He was always affable and polite in our dealings, both as legal adviser for Hazleton City Council during battles with then-Mayor Mike Marsicano and as Hazle Township solicitor.
In the latter capacity, he occasionally stymied requests for public records, but he had an easygoing style and quick smile that made me feel things would work out eventually. In the Hazleton city job, he actually tried to pry records from a belligerent mayor who had three responses to any council request: ignore, stonewall or accuse.
But Pedri pushed anyway, writing council resolutions seeking information about Marsicano’s decisions and filing lawsuits to stop or reverse those moves. One of those suits, not incidentally, was an attempt to force Marsicano to pay Pedri’s bills.
Yet suddenly, Pedri is full of poppycock, protecting politicians with legal obfuscation so shallow you couldn’t hide a paycheck in it.
Paul Kattner asked for data on pay and other township spending. The township is stalling, and Pedri’s the one justifying the chokehold on public information. Kattner has his own political agenda, but that’s irrelevant in determining what records are public.
Some of Pedri’s excuses for the delays are plausible if not palatable. Kattner asked for info stretching back three years, and Pedri insists it will take time to compile it all.
But some of the excuses are outright nonsense. Kattner has asked for payroll data, and Pedri said he’s reviewing whether giving that information violates employee privacy. Pedri knows full well that payroll of township employees is public record. It’s what lawyers call black letter law. If the township spent tax money, the public gets to see where every cent goes.
Access to that information is at the core of government accountability. Private information about employees (Social Security numbers, say) can be kept private, but who got paid what from tax money is unequivocally everybody’s business.
Pedri also made a bizarre claim that he’s waiting for a state Supreme Court ruling on a case in which the Harrisburg Patriot News sued to learn Penn State football coach Joe Paterno’s salary. That case is irrelevant. Penn State is not subject to the state’s “open records” law. Hazle Township is.
Come on, Charlie, you’re better than this. Open the spigot and let some freedom of information flow.
You remember what it’s like to fight for that, don’t you?