White Oak may update its Right-To-Know statute

The current law has been on the books since 2007.

Solicitor Ashley Puchalski suggested updating White Oak’s Right-To-Know laws at borough council’s workshop meeting Monday.

Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law is a source for citizens, agencies, public officials and members of the media to obtain public records of the government, according to the Office of Open Records.

Under the Right-To-Know Law, all records are presumed to be public unless disclosure is barred by state or federal law or regulation, judicial order, privilege or one of the exceptions in the law’s Section 708. It’s not a federal law, as regulations are different for every state.

The borough has gotten 10 to 15 requests so far this year and deals with a minimum of four companies a month, according to township manager John Palyo.

“This is something that is plaguing a lot of our municipalities, not that it is bad here in White Oak,” Puchalski said. “In relation to generally, we’ve been receiving an abundance of right-to-know requests and an increase of requests being submitted.”

Puchalski said there is a third party website called foiabuddy.com, which is an anonymous site where people can go to submit anonymous Right-To-Know requests to the municipality.

“White Oak received a request from foiabuddy and most of the municipalities in the area received a similar request,” Puchalski said. “There was some guidance that was issued by the office of open records that basically said we can’t provide you with legal advice, but there had been appeals to the office of open records where municipalities have denied anonymous right to know requests based upon their written policies that do not allow anonymous requests.

“And so, I recommend that we consider, first of all, a complete overhaul of our original policy because right now, it’s like two paragraphs. It barely provides any information and we should have a more comprehensive policy.”

The borough’s current adoption of the law is one page and was established in March 2007 as a “statutory requirement,” according to Puchalski, who said it sufficed for the time.

It states that any public record will be accessible to a Pennsylvania resident who requests the record pursuant to this policy and the Rightto Know Law, and that all requests must be made at normal business hours from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Mondays through Fridays.

Copies of records must be made in writing directly to the borough manager or secretary, and it asks for the name, address and phone number of the requestor. Paper copies are 25 cents per page per side, and online requests are free. The borough has five business days to provide the requested records.

“If mailing is requested, a handling fee of $3.50 will be charged in addition to the actual cost of postage for mailing supplies used,” according to the borough’s Open Records Policy. “If a disk is requested, it will be provided by the Borough of White Oak at a cost of $1 per disk plus 50 cents per file. A new disk will be necessary each time records are provided. Email copies will be available at the cost of $1 per transaction plus 50 cents per file. The Borough of White Oak will require prepayment if the fees are expected to exceed $15.”

For the borough’s policy now that anonymous requests are coming in, Puchalski said the borough needs a name and address because there are a lot of “serial requestors” who are spending a lot of the borough’s resources and a lot of legal review — leading to her suggesting that the borough needs to update its policy.

“There is a lot of resources and time and effort that is put in from the municipality to be able to respond to these, which is understandable because of people’s rights to request documents, but this is just something I want to put on your radar,” Puchalski said. “I don’t think it’s something we necessarily have to jump on, but I gave you a policy that meets my stamp of approval. It’s just pretty straight forward. Sometimes these requests are worrisome.”

Puchalski hopes to adopt a resolution at its July 15 meeting to update its policy and to make sure there will be no anonymous requests made, with a final draft being turned into the Palyo by Friday. The borough hopes to appeal for anonymous records requests from their policy through the Office of Open Records.

“Time is blowing by very fast. We have many things on our list and many things to do. It is going very fast,” Palyo said. “You blink your eyes and it’s a month later and you’re at the next meeting, and we are getting more things on our list then we are checking off our list. So that gets a little overwhelming sometimes.”