Join in the Discussion
Apr 27th, 2007 by dani_k
Welcome, everyone! We started this blog as a way to get the open records discussion in PA up and running - and no one likes a one-sided discussion, especially Jamie. Please join in by adding comments, contacting us, and spreading the word about our blog. We’d especially love your stories about open records challenges you’ve faced in your hometown.
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What would a blog be without something or someone to ruffle your feathers…allow me to first get this out an in the open, I am a PHEAA employee.
The Patriot News has published several articles regarding PHEAA and it’s practices. Respectfully they also published PHEAA’s counterpoint. I believe it is important to show both points of view…I am copying the editorial that was posted in today’s Patriot News.
Published in the Patriot News on Wednesday June 06, 2007.
COUNTERPOINT RICHARD E. WILLEY
PHEAA guarded data from competitors
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Your recent article and editorial concerning the legal costs incurred by the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency in the litigation caused by the unprecedented Right to Know Act request by several media outlets, including The Patriot-News, was factually misleading.
These overly broad requests necessitated the production of over 50,000 documents, tying up over 30 employees for weeks. Interestingly, only 300 of 50,000 documents requested were copied by The Patriot-News and the other media.
Your contention that we were trying to shield the costs of board workshops that occurred years ago is erroneous and reference to your files would show that the full cost of these workshops had been published long ago. What these requests actually involved was a shotgun approach that would have led to disclosure of proprietary competitive information concerning PHEAA’s marketing efforts with its business clients. In addition, the request sought personal information, such as credit card, telephone and even Social Security numbers, the disclosure of which would have been improper under the law.
The disclosure of this proprietary competitive information would have helped PHEAA’s for-profit competitors steal PHEAA’s business clients by knowing its marketing plans. Commonwealth Court, in an opinion that noted in its first sentence that this case involved questions of law that had never been decided in our state, rejected this attempt to obtain proprietary competitive information and is exactly why PHEAA sought the court’s guidance immediately by asking for a Declaratory Order. Unfortunately, it was your position that this matter should be drawn out and go through a full evidentiary hearing at a lower level, only to return to the court whose guidance PHEAA originally sought.
PHEAA is running a multibillion-dollar, self-funded proprietary business as a publicly sponsored enterprise and returns more than $200 million a year in public benefits and programs, including zero fee loans, military loan forgiveness, programs to address our critical nursing shortage and an unprecedented level of support — this year $75 million — for our State Grant Program.
We would have preferred to spend the costs and staff time caused by the scattershot Right to Know Act requests on providing access to higher education instead of copying 50,000 documents. However, we fully recognize our responsibilities under the law and have always sought to meet them in a reasonable manner.
The Patriot-News doesn’t seem to realize that we also have legal rights and responsibilities to protect both proprietary and the personal information that was sought in these excessive requests. The constitution of our commonwealth mandates that our courts be open to resolve disputes. In this case, the position of The Patriot-News seems to be that, however unreasonable their actions may be, no one has the right to challenge requests by the media.
While I am a strong believer in the First Amendment, I would note that there are other rights established by our Constitution, including the right to due process of law. PHEAA availed itself of its constitutional right to fair adjudication, sought immediate guidance, and has fully complied with the court’s direction in this matter. At the same time, PHEAA was careful to protect our vital enterprise that produces the enormous public benefits and opportunities our citizens expect.
At a time when we read of layoffs and plant closings in central Pennsylvania every week, your unceasing attack on a public enterprise that has added over 600 family-sustaining jobs to the area in the past three years, and has even been praised by other states who are clients of ours, seems misguided and unfair.
RICHARD E. WILLEY is president and CEO of PHEAA.
One of the oft cited objections to making more government records available to the public is the high cost of locating and distributing the requested information. This is also the justification for charging a fee to fulfill requests and the excuse offered for growing backlogs. Unless you’ve been in a coma or stranded on a desert island for the last 20 years, you are aware that we are living in the information age. Computers are ubiquitous and most are connected to the Internet. There is no question that it is far more efficient and cost effective to process documents electronically than it is to push paper. Any government agency that is still largely paper based is squandering resources and thereby cheating taxpayers. Every government document that is deemed public should be made available via the Internet. Furthermore, these documents should be accessible through a capable search engine. Given the current state of information technology, anything less is simply willful obfuscation.
What a shame that the PA Newspaper Association has chosen to burden already over worked and understaffed municipal employees with a game to get information for which the requesters have no need. Your game has the potential of burdening the people who have no control over the law; it is not fair to them. You are wasting tax payer money, so if you feel that taxpayers are already victims under the current law, you are making their situation worse. I am disappointed that the PA Newspaper Association would cheapen the discussion of a serious issue by the use of an irresponsible publicity stunt.
The following response was written by Teri Henning:
On behalf of the Newspaper Association, I feel the need to respond to this post. The open records challenge is not intended to - nor should it - place an unreasonable burden on any particular municipality or public official. The challenge is intended to shed light on public records issues in Pennsylvania, and we intentionally gave participants a wide range of options in making an open records request. Each participant is asked to request only one document, among a wide-ranging list. The record requested could include: the contract of any school superintendent, township manager, or county executive; the total amount spent on legal fees by any township, county, borough, or town for the year 2006; 3) a specific settlement agreement between any municipality and a third person (who must be named); or minutes from the last two public meetings of any municipality, school board, board of trustees or other public agency. Not only are these documents that are clearly public records under Pennsylvania’s Right to Know Law, they are also documents that should be easily accessible upon request.
In fact, news organizations routinely conduct “open records audits,” to gauge public agency compliance with state open records laws. See, for example http://foi.missouri.edu/openrecseries.html. These audits have been very effective in identifying problems with state open records laws and, in a number of cases, have led to improved open records laws.
Although some may regard this as a game or stunt, indeed it is not. It illustrates the pressing needs that any citizen has in trying to find out what the government is doing.
Hello,
I have studied law on my own for the last 25 years and I long ago determined the problem with this whole situation is not the “Right to Know” law. This law clearly gives the public access to all we have a “right to know”. The problem is twofold. First, the courts don’t pay any attention to the law because they will be victims if it is followed. Due to my many years of dealing with judges and attorneys in the study of our system I can say as a group they are about as dishonest as any group can possibly be. Second, our founding fathers gave us the power to deal with their dishonesty in the Constitution but no one seems to know it. I have looked at hundreds of lawsuits filed on this issue both by the media and others and they all have one thing in common. They ask the courts to follow the law when the solution is to ask the public to follow the law. The Constitution allows trial by jury for; any criminal matter, any issue of 25.00 or more or any issue of significant public importance. Since open government was an absolute desire of our founding fathers I would like to hear the argument that the public cannot sit in judgement on a jury on open records issues because it is not of “significant public importance”. As well, since this is a civil issue you would only need a majority of the jury to open the records in any case brought before it. I doubt anyone in the state could put together a jury that would deny itself the right to see government records. So, the bottom line is because of the media’s lack of knowledge on all of our rights and their failure to have these issues constantly in the courts in front of jurys the blame for this situation falls right in the lap of the media. You complain “why doesn’t someone do something” when you are the only ones that can. Anyone that expects the courts to be honest and follow a law that would put lots of them in jail needs to look at this deal I have on a bridge in New York. They can make payments if they choose. If you read the works of our founding fathers it was their desire to make the media more powerful than any corrupt government so they did just that. So instead of complaining and “begging for help” educate yourselves and ask the public to open up the records and not those that have a vested interest in hiding them. What the media is doing is a silly as asking my mom if I’m a nice guy and being surprised when she tells you I am. If you need help on this issue feel free to contact me. Respectfully submitted, Dennis McKee
We performed our own mini-test of the Pa Right to Know Law in a story broadcast earlier this week on WTAE TV, Pittsburgh. Here’s a link:
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/team4/14109495/detail.html
I believe that the public’s right to access to such information is
bottom-line to intelligent voting and democracy. It increases our
ability to judge who’s done their work for the people and who has been
helping just their own friends. With today’s easy-to-use scanners, it’s
easy to post records online. Some PA counties, for ex.,post records of
civil lawsuits online. Dauphin County doesn’t, and Dauphin County also
nows wants people to have to subscribe to check property records online.
I believe this is scammish. I like the attitude of your organization, but I am in a civil lawsuit NOW in Dauphin Cty. after almost being killed on
the escalator at 333 Market St., Harrisburg, when a metal step broke off and planed through the air. I have waited for four years w/o
sufficient medical care (and lost wages since end of 2004) due to
injuries. So– here’s an open record from me to you. If there are any public safety advocates out there,I have no attorney and need help from anyone who’d like to be a support system when this comes up for trial.The step just missed hitting another worker, too.I was injured when the force of the escalator breaking threw me down hard. I am permanently injured, but that’s not as bad as winding up in a hospital for life, which might have happened. The attorneys have all but blacklisted me, and it’s hard to be pro se on a limited income and in
pain. Law students could learn about things by joining me at least as viewers (watchers of the watchers?) at trial. For one thing, I had to file in pauperis, but there are no funds allowed for depositions, which hurts the democratic process. (etc.) You may write me or call if interested, and if you have seen other escalator accidents there or seen its many, many breakdowns — or agree with Michael Moore (”Sicko”)
and myself that insurance companies should be required to immediately pay medical bills and lost wages for people injured on dangerous, publicly accessed property such as Harristown II, [redacted - please contact this site if you want the address or email]. It would help pro se litigants if Dauphin County civil cases were on the internet, so
we could better see what the Common Pleas civil court judges come forth with in their decisions, for ex. God Bless! Also,I was scammed on a house I bought in Hbg. which was supposed to have been completely rehabbed. When I got injured and could not possibly pay taxes and mortgage increases and repairs, the same judge I have in the injury case has now ruled Imust pay for the defective house plus a ton of owed mortgage payments. They locked me out, Legal Aid and Consumer Protection did not help, and I have learned a lot of other persons have been similarly harmed. This is not in the least a fair or “democratic” or empathetic system in Dauphin County. Claudia
The Open Records Bill that just emerged from Committe is a real joke.
However, everything the committee failed to do can very easily be corrected by the amendment process from the House floor.
Let’s see who does what.
Larry Roberts
Former House member from Uniontown
Hi,
I am a resident of NJ. Will I be able to make a Pub Records request under the new law. Under the current law, one had to be a PA resident.
Thanks,
Randy S Hersh
rshersh@gmail.com