passopenrecords.org

Like many of you, passopenrecords.org is going to take a holiday break until the New Year.
You can still post on the blog, and Dani will be watching for any important news to post. But we will take a week’s rest from the feverish pace of the fall . . . and hopefully return refreshed […]

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Several years ago, never mind how many, I ran for public office. We’ll skip the details of why I ran, what office I sought, and what party I represented. But as something of an (undoubtedly naïve) idealist, I tried to run on issues . . . public issues. Not for me the world of earmarks, […]

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From the Erie Times:
Public accountability starts at the top. It’s not always a Summit Township official, an Erie County executive or even a Pennsylvania governor who forgets who they’re working for and the fact that public documents belong to you. Even President Bush and his administration must be constantly reminded that their work remains the […]

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At the risk of sounding like the grinch so closed to Christmas, I have to share this story from Kori Walter of the Herald-Standard.
The moral of his story is twofold:
(1) Emails are already the communication of choice for those who seek to fly under the radar. Walter reports that House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese (D-Greene) […]

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The Altoona Mirror sent letters to all 501 of Pennsylvania’s school districts in August asking for superintendents’ employment contracts.
Most school districts complied with the request in a reasonable time frame; those who did not were asked again. Eventually, according to the paper, “Columbia Borough School District [in Lancaster County] was […]

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As the legislature heads into its holiday break, Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-Chester) has promised that his Senate Bill 1, as amended by the House last week, will be the first item on the upper house’s agenda when it reconvenes in the middle of January.
Here are some thoughts about the legislation as it now […]

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Newspapers from around the state have had plenty to say about unfinished open-records business.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazete says it’s no wonder that “the public…remains angry, two years after their middle-of-the-night pay raise was rescinded. They just don’t seem to understand that it’s not about the raise anymore — it’s about the lack of results, the failure […]

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While we wait a month for the Senate to return to Harrisburg after the holiday break and take up the House-modified version of Senate Bill 1, we need to:
1. Keep the pressure on. There is a good deal of momentum now to get something done in the reform realm, and open records seems to be […]

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Once again, we have a plethora of news stories from around the state which demonstrate just how bad our current open records law is.
In Lower Macungie Township, according to the Morning Call , an activist group is calling on “township supervisors to publicly release independent audit reports of township financial records from 2005 and 2006.”
The […]

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By a combined vote of 239-1, the Pennsylvania legislature has approved Senate Bill 1, which will significantly change the state’s open-records law. But, while the House voted unanimously yesterday on third and final passage of SB1, its members made 19 changes to the bill they received from the upper house, and the Senate will not […]

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