Know how to use the Right-to-Know Law
Well before five people were killed when a home exploded in Pottstown last year, multiple people reported smelling natural gas in the vicinity.
The Morning Call was able to disclose their concerns because of documents obtained using the state Right-to-Know Law.
It’s an important tool anyone can use to get their hands on all sorts of useful information. It doesn’t have to involve a matter of life-or-death.
The law can be used to snoop into whether your tax dollars are being wasted. It can generate leads for your business. It can help solve potentially costly personal problems, too.
I’ve written about a couple who endured sewer backups in their basement and used the law to obtain records showing their township hadn’t done an adequate job clearing tree roots from sewer mains. That knowledge helped them obtain compensation for the damage.
This week is Sunshine Week, a national effort promoting open government and freedom of information. I always celebrate the week by reminding people about the power of the Right-toKnow Law and encouraging them to use it.
The law presumes all records of local, county and state government agencies are public, unless they specifically are excluded. Examples of excluded records are those about security, trade secrets, personal financial information and criminal investigations.
And, here’s the best part of the law — it doesn’t allow government to consider why someone wants records. Governments must provide records to everyone, without regard to how the information may be used.
The more people who use the law, the better. Public officials must be reminded that what they do is a matter of public record. The
Right-to-Know Law is a deterrent to backroom deal making and political gamesmanship.
The Pennsylvania Office of Open Records is an advocate for government transparency that adjudicates disputes about access to government records.
In its recently released 2022 annual report, the agency highlighted The Morning Call’s use of the law to disclose the trail of gas odor complaints in the weeks, months and years before the fatal blast in Pottstown. Nearly a year later, the cause has not been announced.
Here are other examples of important information that was made public because of the law, according to the Office of Open Records report:
Many schools in southwestern Pennsylvania are not testing for radon, a radioactive gas common in buildings in that area. It can cause lung cancer.
Dauphin County did not disclose all details of how four inmates died at the county prison.
Central Bucks School District paid former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain $940 an hour to investigate allegations it created a hostile environment for LGBTQ students.
Many people have the misconception the Right-to-Know Law was written for people like me, members of the media whose job is to hold public officials accountable.
Newspapers and other media
outlets were responsible for the examples I cited. But we aren’t the only ones who use the law.
While no one tracks Rightto-Know Law requests, one gauge is the workload of the Office of Open Records. And last year, more than half of the 2,876 appeals (57%) that were filed with OOR to try to force governments to cough up records were filed by everyday citizens.
They could be parents seeking information about their children’s schools, or people looking for policies about police accountability.
A quarter of the appeals were filed by businesses, which can use the law to look for leads. Swimming pool supply companies,
for example, can request records about new pool permits so they know where to mail offers.
Only 4% of the appeals were filed by the media. You just hear more about the media using the law because we publish what we find.
But this is a law for the people. It’s important that everyone knows about it so they can use it.
You can find a copy of the law and instructions about how to use it on the website of the Office of Open Records, openrecords. pa.gov/.