Talk of the State
Aug 10th, 2007 by JamieB
It’s time to catch up on coverage of this issue from around Pennsylvania. Below are a few excerpts. The big news, of course, was the testimony of Allen Biehler, the state’s secretary of transportation at the House State Government’s Committee’s hearings last Tuesday on Rep. Tim Mahoney’s (D-Fayette) open-records reform bill. Biehler, whose department had long refused to make information available about the condition of Pennsylvania’s bridges – even in the wake of the disastrous collapse in Minneapolis – had initially refused even to appear before the committee. He not only appeared. He reversed the department’s longstanding position and agreed to make the information.
We are still a long way from a new law, but last week was a big step in the right direction. Read on.
• The Associated Press
THE SCENE: The House State Government Committee on Tuesday held a hearing on proposed changes to Pennsylvania’s open records law and had invited state transportation secretary to explain why his agency had denied a newspaper’s request to see bridge safety ratings.
THE SURPRISE: Transportation Secretary Allen D. Biehler told legislators he decided hours before his testimony that he will release the records, overruling internal agency concerns that releasing the records would compromise public security and create undue alarm.
THE POINT: Critics of Pennsylvania’s open-records law say the statute is weak because it gives officials at all levels of government wide latitude to deny public records requests, as exemplified by the withholding of bridge safety ratings.
• State to release bridge ratings
Gov. Ed Rendell said Tuesday he told PennDOT to release numerical ratings of steel deck truss bridges in Pennsylvania that are similar to the Interstate 35W bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis one week ago.
Rendell told KYW Radio in Philadelphia that he put the request to Transportation Secretary Allen Biehler.
“I think the public has a right to know that,” Rendell said.
It was an about-face for PennDOT, which until yesterday refused to release the scores of the 54 bridges – 21 of which are in Allegheny County.
Biehler initially declined to testify about the data before the House State Government Committee, citing a scheduling conflict, but rearranged his schedule. He told the panel the agency would make the information available on 25,000 PennDOT-owned bridges – 6,000 of which are considered “structurally deficient.”
After refusing to make detailed bridge safety data available to the public, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Secretary Allen Biehler yesterday reversed his stance and promised to release ratings on 25,000 state-owned bridges within the next few weeks.
Biehler said there had been debate within his agency over whether the scores would unnecessarily alarm the public. PennDot denied two requests by a western Pennsylvania newspaper to review detailed data on bridges deemed structurally deficient.
But yesterday, Biehler said that “we will err on the side of providing the information.”
• March toward open records
Bob Heisse posting on CentreDaily.com
I worked at the Patriot-News for 18 years and only ever got to the Capitol as a visitor or an editor pest to the Capitol newsroom.
So it was quite an honor to get a chance to testify yesterday at the House State Government hearing on open-records reform.
The hearing made news for PennDOT’s reversal of form on making bridge safety ratings public. There was much more to it, however, and I’ll write about it in my Sunday column.
I was part of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association group that included Terri Henning, general counsel, and Carl Lavin, deputy managing editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer. We talked about the importance of making government records and information more accessible, from our different perspectives.
All in all, it’s great to see the effort going into this, after all of these years. The result, we hope, is a law that brings much more sunshine to government, and I feel confident that the legislature is moving toward that.
• Legislators Experience PA’s Terrible Open-Records Law Firsthand
State legislators received a firsthand look Tuesday at why critics say Pennsylvania’s open-records law is too weak : In front of them, the state’s top highway official reversed a decision his agency had made to withhold bridge safety ratings from the public.
• The Latest from PA FOI Reform…
This Philadelphia Inquirer editorial gives us a nice update:
Legislators in Harrisburg can take an important step tomorrow to strengthen Pennsylvania’s open-records law, one of the weakest in the nation.
A state House panel will review a bill that would give residents more clout when seeking information on everything from zoning decisions to expense reports of public officials.
Current state law has the issue backwards. It places the burden on citizens to prove why any government record should be open for public inspection.
A bill from Rep. Tim Mahoney (D., Fayette) would shift the burden onto state and local agencies to explain why certain records should be kept secret.
The measure contains other important features. It would cover the legislature, which is currently exempt. It would create an independent office to handle requests for state records and appeals of denials. It would increase the fines for willful violations from $300 to $1,000.
House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese (D., Greene) and Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware) say strengthening the open-records law is a priority.
But there is ample skepticism about how much openness lawmakers really want. Just last month, legislative leaders refused to disclose how $360 million in the legislators’ “walking-around money” slush fund was being spent in their home districts….
• Proposal to strengthen open records law produces some disagreements on details
Everyone agreed that government records should be open to public inspection, but when it came to the details, speakers at a public hearing yesterday were divided.
The Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence wants to prevent disclosure of 911 call recordings. But Carl Lavin, deputy managing editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, said such access would allow residents to evaluate how well and how quickly emergency workers respond.
Barry Kauffman, of Common Cause Pennsylvania, said the public is entitled to know how state-related universities spend money, and school officials agreed – to a point. George Moore, secretary of Temple University’s board of trustees, said salaries of mid- and low-ranking university workers are no one’s business.
They were among 17 people who testified yesterday at a hearing of the House State Government Committee to discuss an open records bill proposed by Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-South Union.
“The good thing is that no one really attacked the bill. There was no major disagreement,” Mr. Mahoney said after the six-hour hearing.
Still, it won’t be easy to find a compromise that addresses the public’s right to information and individuals’ right to privacy, said committee Chairwoman Babette Josephs, D-Philadelphia.
“We all understand this is a balancing act, and we’re looking to find the right fulcrum,” she said.
• Giving the public greater access to government records would restore trust in state government, state Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-Fayette County, said Tuesday at a hearing on strengthening Pennsylvania’s open-records law.
Mahoney is the main sponsor of legislation that would give residents the right to obtain almost all government documents, ranging from township records to expenditures of state lawmakers.
“For a long time in Pennsylvania, we as legislators played shell games with the public, the newspapers and everybody else by not letting them know where the money is being spent,” Mahoney told the House State Government Committee. “I believe this bill will let the sunshine in. This is a bill that would put trust back in this House that we desperately need.”
Rep. Jaret Gibbons, D-10, Ellwood City, said he will back the bill as long as it safeguards personal information of state officials and public employees.
“The key part of this legislation is opening the financial records of our state, including the Legislature,” Gibbons said. “I am almost certain that sometime this session we will pass a stronger Right to Know Law.”
Rep. Paul Clymer, R-Bucks County, agreed the bill had strong bipartisan support in the House.
“The more information that we can provide to the public through the media and other forms strengthens government,” Clymer said. “I think this bill is a step in the right direction.”
But Clymer disagreed with Mahoney’s strategy for getting the bill through the House.
Mahoney urged the committee to vote on the current version and let the full House revise the language during floor debate.
Clymer warned that’s a blueprint for disaster.
Lawmakers could insert language on the House floor that could peel off support for the bill and eventually sink it, Clymer said.
“You have to work out all the problems with the bill in the committee, and then go forward,” he said.