Posted: Monday, 04 January 2010 10:29AM
Ask More Questions And Don't Back Off
Steve Corbett Reporting
Monday, January 04, 2010
In the new year, just as in the old year, what you don’t know will hurt you.
Yet, despite serious attempts to learn details and specific information from public servants who benefit from taxpayers dollars for their salaries, benefits and perks, we still don’t know nearly enough.
As 2009 came to a close, I had tried my best to find out what I believe to be public information that you need to know to be informed and powerful.
That’s a big part of the problem in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Public officials here, both elected and appointed, don’t want you to be powerful. They want you to do as you’re told and let them handle the decision-making. Let them make the money, spend your money and nurture the personal political connections that blesses them as a privileged class while you remain cursed and forever the peasant.
Arrogance such as this must change.
Luzerne County Judge Dave Lupas must produce a weekly or monthly list of open juvenile proceedings to which the public is invited. The law requires many official inquiries to be public and Lupas has a civic duty to let the people know when they occur.
Until now, Lupas has resisted compiling such a list. Until he does, you are kept uninformed and unaware of what goes on in his courtroom. Such privacy is part of why his predecessor was so easily able to betray the public trust and hurt countless children who appeared before him.
Lupas said through his secretary that people can call each week to inquire. That’s not good enough. Lupas must make the disclosure easier for the people he serves. The burden remains on him. If Lupas fails to provide a timely and comprehensive list, he should be reported to the state board that oversees judicial behavior.
Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O’Brien also needs to wake up and smell the public information. At the end of last year I requested information about county work schedules. I specifically asked if county employees were allowed to take off early because of the holidays. I also asked a specific question about the ethic rules O’Brien initiated and how those rules apply to him.
O’Brien has ignored my inquiry.
So did the solicitor for the Dallas School District when I asked for an investigative report paid for by taxpayers into an incident involving high school football players who witnesses accused of urinating on an opposing team’s tennis court while the Dallas coach allegedly stood by and let it happen.
I also asked the Luzerne County solicitor for some emails sent by a county employee on county computers. Despite a ruling by the state office of open records that such emails are public record, he refused to turn them over.
I left several messages for the executive director of a non-profit Luzerne County poverty program that receives some public funding. I requested his salary and the cost of the health and other benefits he receives. It’s only fair to know how much money he is paid in exchange for the massive responsibility to help people who are struggling for their next meal for themselves and their children.
But the well-dressed, well-paid executive director refused to respond.
Do you see a troubling pattern here?
These people believe they are immune to public scrutiny. Even though the open records law clearly demands public disclosure, these public servants fight too many attempts to find out the simple details about how they spend our money and do the people’s business.
Such stonewalling must stop. But we must all join together to end this abuse. You and I must take the time to file formal written open records requests. We must learn how to fight the system from within and make the law work for us. We must unite to hold public officials accountable.
We know that lawbreakers and slackers in public service and government jobs do not want the law to work. And they’re counting on us to back off rather than take the fight directly to them and their staff.
Aggressive newspapers must also lead the charge in making regular open records requests. The Scranton Times Tribune has recently done a commendable job in asking for and receiving such information.
The bureaucrats believe that they can simply ignore us.
But they can’t.
Always remember that the U.S. Secret Service investigation into the misuse of Luzerne County tax dollars known as the “debit card debacle” began because one citizen made a formal complaint. That investigation came to involve some of the very people who have already pleaded guilty in the ongoing federal public corruption probe.
Ask more, not fewer, questions.
Take pride in raising hell.
A truly happy new year depends on it.
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Corbett
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