Right-to-Know Law facing five-year checkup

Some proposed changes could restrict public access.

It's been five years since Pennsylvania government stepped out of the shadows by rewriting its open records law to give citizens much more access to how governments operate and spend public money.

Many people, including me, believe the new Right-to-Know Law has worked pretty well.

Locally, people have used it to obtain information to bolster their fights against city hall, resulting in local governments paying for damage caused by sewage backups and from a car accident.

The new law has been far from perfect in the eyes of many, though. Of course, they disagree about what's not working.

They'll get their chance to debate that as the law's author, Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, a Republican from Delaware County, is proposing the first significant revisions to the Right-to-Know Law since it was rewritten in 2008. A hearing is scheduled for Monday before the Senate State Government Committee on his plan, Senate Bill 444.

While some of the proposed changes look like they would help, I fear others could allow government to slip back into the shadows.

The most alarming proposal would give governments an escape clause. They could seek a court order to avoid answering requests, or to limit the records they must provide, if they believe a request or related group of requests "would be unduly burdensome."

I hope courts would set a high bar for issuing such orders.

Pileggi's spokesman, Erik Arneson, told me there is a concern that small municipalities are being bombarded with requests that aren't being filed in good faith. He said he doesn't think governments would abuse the option to seek court protection, as they would incur legal fees.

"It's not something I think municipalities or agencies would do lightly," Arneson said, noting lawmakers are open to other solutions.

Kim McNally de Bourbon, executive director of the Pennsylvania Freedom of Information Coalition, said other options should be explored.

"I understand that some agencies are very frustrated because they get large requests," she told me. "There's got to be another solution to it."

Township officials would appreciate help on that front, as well as help with corporations making a buck off government records at the expense of governments, said Les Houck, president of the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors and a supervisor in Salisbury Township, Lancaster County.

Some townships receive regular requests for records like building permits from companies presumably trying to sell items and services to new homeowners, said Houck, who is scheduled to testify at Monday's hearing along with de Bourbon.

"I think it was a good law," Houck told me. "I think it helped to clean a lot up. It just has backfired on costs and being abused. Commercial users, they are the ones taking so much advantage."

Pileggi's bill would allow governments to recoup some of their costs by allowing them to charge for the time workers spend to supply information to commercial requesters.

Another major proposed change would ban inmates from using the Right-to-Know Law except to ask for specified records including those about their criminal cases and housing, financial, work, educational and disciplinary issues.

Arneson said that is in response to the overwhelming number of record requests filed by inmates, many of whom appeal to the state Office of Open Records when they are denied.

"Obviously, there's records they should have access to," Arneson said. "However, there is a very strong sense that many of these [requests] are simply because they have the ability to do it and they have the time to do it."

Last year, inmates filed nearly one-third of all appeals with the Office of Open Records. There were 419 appeals involving the Department of Corrections. That was nearly 10 times as many as any other state agency, according to a recent report from the Office of Open Records.

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