Statewide survey finds getting public records can be a challenge

By MARK SCOLFORO Associated Press Writer

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -- Many government offices across Pennsylvania treat requests for basic public records and documents with suspicion, hindering prompt access -- and about 10 percent of the requests are flatly denied, a survey of nearly 700 government offices found.

Despite 2002 changes in state law intended to strengthen the public's "right to know," obtaining full access to public records in Pennsylvania remains a challenge at the local level, from court, county and municipal offices to school and police headquarters.

Success can depend on who fields the request for information, how requesters identify themselves and what reason they give for wanting the information -- and a host of other variables.

In the survey, coordinated by The Associated Press, reporters and other employees of 50 newspapers and a television station drove a total of 15,000 miles in late February to test access to public records and information. In some cases, follow-up calls were also made.

The surveyors sought records that allow citizens to learn about where crimes are occurring in their communities, how their school administrators are being compensated, or how local judges are meting out justice in cases that get little if any publicity. The most difficult record to obtain proved to be 24-hour logs of police calls.

Just over 50 percent of the requests for information were granted within a few days, though in some cases only after surveyors said they worked for newspapers or answered other questions satisfactorily.

In about 30 percent of the cases, the requesters were either flatly turned down or unable to get the records within a few days due to a variety of circumstances -- such as the stated unavailability of anyone who could approve the release. A 1999 survey by 14 Pennsylvania newspapers produced similar results.

The latest survey and dozens of follow-up interviews by the AP identified a number of barriers to access, even in cases of records that right-to-know experts say are indisputably public under Pennsylvania law.

But the findings also point to ways Pennsylvanians can prevail in requests for government documents:

--Be prepared for questions about identity, work affiliation and motive. They may not be legally required, but that won't keep officials from asking them, or from declining access if the questions aren't answered to their satisfaction.

--Verify that the person fielding the request is acting with full knowledge of his or her office's open-records policy. Even some supervisors showed they were unfamiliar with their own written rules.

--Appeal denials up the chain of command. Several officials said later that they or their underlings had been wrong to deny access, and offered to produce a previously denied document.

Surveyors asked for school superintendent contracts and high school principal salaries; vehicle costs for boroughs and townships; jail overtime and legal fees paid by counties; criminal-case files and a photocopy of charging documents from district judges; and police call logs.

Most police agencies that declined to produce their blotters said either that they did not keep such a log, that the blotters included details that could hamper an ongoing criminal investigation, or that no one was available to authorize their release. Some said they simply did not consider it to be a public record.

Two out of five departments refused to provide the logs and did not disclose any information from them. Of the others, about half provided the logs and a roughly equal number turned over at least some information about recent police activity. Call logs provide a basic level of detail about police activity in a given community and are the best way for the public to ensure police have disclosed all arrests and other significant incidents.

Brookville Police Chief Ken Dworek was among those who said "no," although his department issues news releases for even the most minor incidents.

He said the request from a surveyor who provided only his name and hometown raised suspicions as well as concerns that the blotter could help a burglar avoid night patrols or a stalker locate his victim.

"I like to be helpful, believe me. But he didn't give me a reason that I could give it to him," said Dworek, whose department serves the Jefferson County seat, population 4,200, in the geographical center of western Pennsylvania.

The state Right-to-Know Law specifies that requesters don't have to say why they want a given record or how they will use it, but surveyors endured aggressive -- and in some cases intimidating -- questioning by clerks, secretaries, supervisors and elected officials.

They also encountered ignorance of the law and office policies, indifference and some rudeness. But far more often they reported pleasant or at least professional attitudes among the government workers contacted for the survey.

Even where the law is firmly settled, such as the public nature of a superintendent's employment contract, disclosure was far from universal. Surveyors were successful at 67 percent of the 130 school districts where it was sought; several superintendents said in subsequent interviews they didn't realize their contract is public.

Superintendent William Pettigrew of the Mars Area School District turned over his contract, but was surprised to learn any Pennsylvania resident is entitled to see it.

"You're telling me that I could go to downtown Pittsburgh and I could see the document?" said Pettigrew, whose district is about 20 miles north of Pittsburgh.

District courts provided access or partial access 90 percent of the time, but the survey found inconsistencies in policies concerning redaction, including cases where a defendant's address and age were blacked out. Some judges who had critical details on court documents redacted said they were worried that information might be used to harm someone.

"You don't want to give out information that could cause a problem with anybody that's involved in the case," said District Judge Lee Watson in Carmichaels, in the state's southwestern corner. "Sometimes people want to get their own kind of retribution." In the Philadelphia suburbs of Bucks County, courts blacked out so much information that President Judge David W. Heckler later took action, writing district judges last month to say defendants' names and addresses should be disclosed.

"They weren't discharging their responsibilities by just having a just-tell-the-reporters-to-beat-it policy for their staff," Heckler said.

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