Staff writer
sbeveridge@observer-reporter.com
Cathy Lodge has questions about a giant new power plant being developed in her neighborhood and believes that some answers lie in a state-funded report on file at the Washington County Courthouse.
She was allowed to look at the nearly 40-page report once but felt a bit intimidated while a county official and another man stood over her at the Washington County Conservation District office when she went there to read the document. She ended up receiving copies of just eight pages of the report that was funded in March with a $157,000 grant from Gov. Ed Rendell.
"If this was paid for with state money, why can't we have it?" said Lodge, of Robinson Township, discussing the report on whether the Beech Hollow power plant can treat water from abandoned and flooded mines to cool its towers.
The process, if successful, would restore 26 miles of Raccoon Creek, which has been damaged by acid mine drainage from the Erie, Langeloth and Francis mines.
"What do they have to hide?" Lodge said.
Hundreds of people have been airing similar complaints at a Web site on open-records access sponsored by the Pennsylvania Freedom of Information Coalition as state lawmakers ponder three amendments to the Open Records Act.
Members of the state House and Senate are under public pressure to initiate reform following harsh criticism of the legislative pay raise in 2004 and an unfulfilled promise from Harrisburg five years ago to reduce property taxes.
"Certainly there has been a lot talk of reform," said Teri Henning, an attorney with the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, a leading lobbyist for full access to public records.
"We're hoping this is first on the list," Henning said. "It's all about government accountability. Where better to begin?"
Henning is speaking at forums on public access across the state, along with lawmakers who are sponsoring the amendments.
There are currently two versions in the Senate and one in the House that was proposed by freshman Rep. Tim Mahoney, a Fayette County Democrat. Floor discussions in the House could begin as early as next month, Mahoney said at a Sept. 15 open-records forum at the University of Pittsburgh.
"It's your money. It's your dollars. What's the big deal?" said state Sen. Jim Ferlo, who is sponsoring a similar bill.
Ferlo said he remains doubtful that any amendment to the act would lead to meaningful changes.
There is debate as to whether the state needs an access office to help settle disputes over record requests. It remains unclear if there is enough support among the lawmakers for withholding documents that could threaten public and personal security if they were released, or to include the Legislature in the bill.
A businessman for more than 20 years, Mahoney said he would have been out of business years ago had he run his companies like Harrisburg manages the state.
"We've got to start putting trust back in ..." Mahoney said.
A major problem with Pennsylvania's law, Henning said, is its lack of a presumption clause that ensures that all taxpayer-funded records are available to the public. That's how most states' right-to-know laws are defined, she said.
"Ours starts out that nothing is public unless the requester can prove it with one of two narrow categories," she said.
The public documents held by public officials are defined as accounts, vouchers, contracts, meeting minutes and orders and decisions, Henning added.
The act was amended in 2002, four years after 14 newspapers in Pennsylvania sent reporters in search of public records in places where they were not immediately recognized and were met with many roadblocks.
The amendments did not include a definition of public records, but they established time limits for producing records, an appeals process and limitations on copying and redaction fees.
But when Jim Parsons, an investigative reporter for WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh, went in search of travel expense records for employees at Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, he was hit with a nearly $30,000 bill for redaction fees. The station, along with two other media outlets, also spent $70,000 in legal fees to obtain the records that hinted at abuses of spending at PHEAA.
"What's happening now, whether intentional or not, these redaction fees are being used to deny," Parsons said.
Gary Stokum, executive director of the conservation district office, appealed to a reporter with the Observer-Reporter to "be reasonable and use a little common sense" when he denied the newspaper a copy of the Erie Langeloth Francis mines report Friday.
"I have no idea what it costs to copy that report," said Stokum, adding that the state Department of Environmental Protection had given him the impression that he does not have to provide copies of reports the agency generates.
Stokum said it would take a geologist to correctly interpret the report, and that it might be "misconstrued" and reported inaccurately in the newspaper if he wasn't present to explain the document to a reporter.
"What good is it to you if you don't understand it?" he said.
Ron Ruman, spokesman for the DEP in Harrisburg, said Friday afternoon that he also would investigate the newspaper's complaint that it was unable to obtain a copy of the report.
Stokum's salary is paid with taxpayer money, but he is not technically a county employee, said Washington County Commissioner J. Bracken Burns. County conservation districts are funded through a variety of sources, including money from the state Department of Agriculture.
Burns said he paid Stokum a personal visit to explain the county's liberal open records policy Friday afternoon after becoming alerted to the difficulties people were having with getting a copy of the study.
Burns said it's not necessary to "run an IQ test" on someone or judge their competence before making copies of public records available to residents.
Stokum then called the newspaper shortly after 3 p.m. Friday to say that the report was at a copying company and would be available to a reporter as early as Thursday.
"Well, you managed to rattle enough chains," he said.