Posted: Monday, 05 January 2009 10:53AM
They BETTER Open Those Records
Steve Corbett Reporting
Monday, January 05, 2009
With renewed energy and a mouth full of talk, I greet the New Year ready to head back to work.
Remember when highway billboards proclaimed “Corbett’s Back” after I returned from a five-year exile in California to reclaim my place in the media world of hard coal country?
Well, after a nice vacation Corbett indeed is back for another year of wild news talk and political discussion.
Time off always helps focus my thoughts. A brief respite from the madness clarifies the matters that matter.
And now it’s time for another bout of community conversation that helps us better understand ourselves as well as each other.
Today’s show will start our renewed pursuit of public information that helps us understand elected and appointed officials who don’t always rise to the challenge of good government.
So one of my first moves this afternoon will be to seek out the people responsible for overseeing Pennsylvania’s new open records law – public servants whose job now involves making sure that the people receive answers to questions that have been hidden far too long.
Lackawanna and Luzerne counties are supposed to have specially designated workers to handle such requests.
I’ll try to get them on the air.
And, if I don’t succeed, I’ll tell you why.
I’ll also tell you how I plan to once again obtain the secret list of honorary deputies that Lackawanna Sheriff John Szymanski has kept private for about 30 years. Secrets such as this make new and improved open records requirements all the more important.
We need to know answers to questions that people like the sheriff want to keep secret.
And I promise to do all I can to make sure we get them.
So should you.
Training is available through the new state open records law office. Community groups should schedule whatever is available so people are better equipped to know what they need to do to gain access to records to which they are entitled.
Open records open a world of information that good citizens need to improve their lives and the lives of others.
Open records provide a window into the often closed-door wheeling-and-dealing that clouds true public service.
After decades of working as a journalist, I’m still confused at times when it comes to challenging the system. The bureaucracy is so unwieldy that public officials often purposely hide behind the clouds of confusion.
That must end.
Transparency must become the norm.
And we must do all we can do to challenge the authorities to be accountable to the people they serve.
My first call today will go to the executive director of the state’s open records agency. My next call will go to the woman charged with handling the open records requests in Lackawanna County. Luzerne County might prove more difficult because I’m not sure if officials there have yet designated a person to handle requests.
If not, they better designate someone because the law is now in effect.
I want emails and letters. I want lists and numbers. I want dollars and cents without which public service makes little sense. And I want them sooner, not later.
In the past some public officials actually ignored Right to Know Law requests.
Sheriff Szymanski ignored my letter. So did his solicitor, who went so far as to forbid me from calling his office.
Those days are gone.
If these two public servants ignore me now I’ll have a state official on my side to fight for me and for you. Rogue officials will no longer be able to hide.
At least I hope that’s the case.
The only way to find out if the new law has teeth in it is to test it. So test it I will.
I invite you to join me in the hunt for truth.
Happy New Year.
Happy hunting, too.
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