Posted in Open Records on Feb 14th, 2008 No Comments »
Gov. Ed Rendell will sign Senate Bill 1 today at 2 p.m. in the Governor’s Reception Room.
Below is the press release issued late yesterday by the Pennsyvania Newspaper Association in response to the bill’s passage by both houses of the legislature:
The Pennsylvania Newspaper Association (PNA) recognizes the significant achievement of the State Legislature […]
Posted in Open Records on Feb 13th, 2008 1 Comment »
In a comment posted earlier today, Left of Centre refers to Adam Smeltz’s discussion in the Centre Daily Times of “the weakness of [SB 1] with respect to Penn State and the Commonwealth’s other state-related universities.”
Here is the link to the column. Smeltz writes in part:
New open-records provisions that state lawmakers adopted Tuesday will […]
Posted in Open Records on Feb 13th, 2008 2 Comments »
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Senate passed Senate Bill 1 once again and sent it on to Gov. Rendell, whose spokesman said he would sign it into law.
Last May we published the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association’s six minimum requirements for meaningful open records reform. While there are some significant holes in the bill that is going to the […]
Posted in Open Records on Feb 12th, 2008 1 Comment »
• It’s unanimous in the House as it was in the Senate. House members voted 199-0 to pass open records legislation just five days after GOP members halted debate amid concerns that expanding access to government records would aid identity thieves, put domestic violence victims and senior citizens at risk and cripple the state’s real-estate […]
Posted in Open Records on Feb 12th, 2008 1 Comment »
While newspapers around the state have expressed differences of opinion about how good Senate Bill 1 really is – and whether and how it can be improved – they are coalescing around one simple notion: this process has gone on for over a year, and each day it lingers in the legislature, the more potential […]
Posted in Open Records on Feb 11th, 2008 2 Comments »
The headline in the Bucks County Courier-Times makes your blood run cold: “Caller put on hold, dies in house fire.”
Christina Kristofic’s story tells of a woman, Brenda Orr, who called 911 the morning of January 29, saying her bed was on fire and she could not get out. She was put on hold for almost […]
Posted in Open Records on Feb 8th, 2008 1 Comment »
We continue our series on opinions from around Pennsylvania about Senate Bill 1 with excerpts from recent editorials in the Harrisburg Patriot-News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Centre Daily Times and Lewistown Sentinel. Please join the conversation.
• Public access is good government
Pass open records law
The latest Senate-backed version of a new open records law for Pennsylvania still contains […]
Posted in Open Records on Feb 6th, 2008 No Comments »
Today we continue with our look at different points of view on Senate Bill 1 with excerpts from The Philadelphia Inquirer, Lancaster New Era and Democracy Rising Pa. As you will see over the next few days, the debate has not abated with the unanimous passage of Senate Bill 1, and the suggested paths […]
Posted in Open Records on Feb 5th, 2008 No Comments »
Leslie Graves interviewed Tim Potts of Democracy Rising PA as part of her series of interviews with “Sunshine Activists” from around the nation.
Excerpts below. To read the entire interview, visit Leslie’s site.
• Charles Davis of the National Freedom of Information Coalition has talked about having “a FOI moment”. Have you had “a FOI moment” and […]
Posted in Open Records on Feb 5th, 2008 No Comments »
Over the next couple of days, unless events overtake us — which well they might — we will run some different takes on the current state of the open-records debate as it is playing out in the legislature on the shifting sands beneath Senate Bill 1.
Please join in the discussion.
We lead off with an opinion […]