By Mitchel Olszak
The news on open records in Pennsylvania is good.
Sort of. Sometimes. Depending on what you want and who is in charge of providing it.
Pennsylvania’s new open records law, which went into effect at the beginning of this year, is having a positive impact on the public’s right to know. That’s the gist of a three-part series by Associated Press reporter Mark Scolforo, which begins today in the New Castle News.
The articles examine changes in the law and what journalists and others encounter when they seek government information under its procedures. And while adherence to the law is imperfect — and plenty of gray areas remain — the data suggest the measure is a vast improvement over what the commonwealth used to have.
Pennsylvania’s old open records law could have been more accurately described as a privileged records law. Unless government documents specifically were identified as public, agencies could conceal them. Amazingly, state law presumed that most government documents were none of the people’s business.
That’s the main reform under the new law. Records are presumed to be public unless that law states otherwise.
But there’s more. Under the new open records law, there is a state office specifically assigned to the task of making sure its language is followed. The director is Terry Mutchler, a former journalist and longtime open records advocate.
Plus, there are new, specific procedures set up to ensure a reasonably quick response to open records requests. It’s unreasonable to go into a government office to request a copy of an obscure document and expect staff to drop other duties and immediately dig out the paperwork.
To better assess the effectiveness of the open records law, The Associated Press asked news organizations across the state to participate in a test of government agencies. The News assisted with that effort, by having people go to different locations and request various records.
The AP listed the type of documents it was seeking. In most cases, we had options of what agency we wished to visit in order to request them.
The idea of these tests was to have people anonymously visit the agencies. It was believed (correctly) that some offices might be more cooperative if staff knew a newspaper was seeking the information.
Here at The News, our results were a mixed bag. Perhaps the best evidence of the new law in action came when columnist Lisa Madras visited the Lawrence County 911 center and requested a docket of all calls over a 24-hour period.
The clerk was obviously trained on how to handle such requests. Lisa was given a form to fill out, and several days later she received the information she had requested in the mail (along with a bill for copying costs).
That’s how it’s supposed to work.
Less successful was photographer Erica Galvin’s trip to the Lawrence County Planning Department, where she requested copies of the office’s three most recent grant applications.
The response was bafflement and uncertainty. Erica was told the person responsible for those documents was unavailable.
Our other results varied. We were denied docket information at the state police, but we were given requested data at the Union school district and New Castle City Hall. However, in both of those cases, News staff members were recognized.
All in all, the testing of the open records law in Lawrence County and elsewhere indicates there are gains in the public’s right to know. But the measure is still a work in progress.
