Questions of transparency cropped up throughout the tiers of state and local government over the year as legislation, city policy and school board votes presented an air of secrecy.

Among the more notable local battles for transparency this past year was efforts by the Sun-Gazette to continue publishing daily police activities as it has done for the past three decades. This came about after city police began withholding emergency dispatch records, also known as police logs, in February.

After discussions behind the scenes came to no avail, the newspaper began submitting Right-to-Know requests to the city in August.

At the time, the Sun-Gazette also discovered that, while the police department had stopped sending logs to the newspaper, it continued to send them to other media outlets, rental agencies and private businesses in the area with the condition that the records not be published.

The Sun-Gazette also turned its focus to the county in an attempt to receive the same records from the county 911 Center.

In September, the city stopped sending the police logs to any outside media outlets or agencies. Instead, it began posting them in the police station at City Hall where they could be reviewed, “but we ask that they not be copied, photographed or published,” said a statement released at the time by Capt. Jody Miller, the department’s public information officer.

Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel with the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, described that gesture as a “Band-Aid” solution at best. It did not resolve the issue.

“From a legal perspective, it doesn’t comply with the Right-to-Know Law,” Melewsky said. “The Right-to-Know Law requires the ability to not only inspect, but also make copies of, public records.”

While the city refused to release the records, the county stepped up and agreed to an early Right-to-Know request for the backlog of records from February, after which the newspaper began filing daily requests, asking for the previous day’s emergency dispatch records.

The process remained so for nearly two months until the county put in place a policy to proactively provide the logs without the need for a daily request.

Commissioners Jack McKernan, Rick Mirabito and Tony Mussare said at the time they believed they were doing the “right thing by proactively providing the logs.”

“The information provided should be legally sufficient to ensure the safety of our public, our first responders and the privacy of our residents,” the commissioners said in a statement. “We are doing this in an effort to provide as much transparency as possible, because it will help the public to know what is going on in our communities.”

Proactive disclosure

“I am very proud of Lycoming County for releasing all police dispatch reports from all municipalities in the county,” said Bernard A. Oravec, Sun-Gazette publisher. “That was a step in the right direction and I think it serves the citizens of the county well.”

Melewsky said the proactive disclosure of information was a “great win” for the newspaper.

“They have guaranteed regular access to crime (information) in your community,” Melewsky said. “The fact that the county acknowledges that is a wonderful thing.”

She added that proactively providing information legally required to be public “saves public resources and it keeps the citizens informed.”

One of the main missions of a community newspaper is to hold government, law enforcement and the courts accountable to the citizens of the community, Oravec said.

The Right-to-Know process can be time-consuming and expensive and often requires resources that the average citizen does not have. Community newspapers must take the lead and fund these efforts to ensure that information remains public, he said.

The newspaper will continue to “aggressively pursue as much transparency as possible for our citizens,” Oravec said.

Kept in the dark

Another Sun-Gazette effort aimed at increasing transparency has been going on since January 2015, when the Sun-Gazette intensified its efforts, on behalf of its readers, to identify the people, said to number more than 30, who applied to be an interim Lycoming County commissioner. That need was created after Jeff Wheeland was elected to the state House of Representatives and vacated a commissioner seat.

The state’s fifth-class code makes county court judges responsible for appointing people to fill county commissioner vacancies that occur in between elections.

Though Jeff Rauff ultimately was appointed following a private interview process, the identities of the other applicants never were disclosed and remain a mystery, despite attempts by the Sun-Gazette to obtain the names through Right-to-Know requests. A few people shared that they had applied, but the complete list was never disclosed.

“It is the Sun-Gazette’s view that no one has the right to put his or her name up for public office, with the assumption of anonymity,” Oravec said. “The general public has the inherent right to know who wished to represent them and spend their hard-earned tax dollars.”

Because the only records possessed by judicial agencies that are subject to the Right-to-Know Law are financial records, the request was sent to the office of the county commissioners, even though county President Judge Nancy Butts was the one who solicited and received the applications. The request was denied but later overturned by the state’s open records office after the Sun-Gazette appealed.

The matter went to Lycoming County court where Senior Judge John Leete, of Potter County, concluded in August 2015 that the commissioners’ office had no obligation to release the records because they were in the possession of the county court, a judicial agency.

Rather than continue on through the legal system, the newspaper went the legislative route and supports a bill introduced by state Rep. Kerry Benninghoff, R-Bellefonte, and co-sponsored by local state Reps. Jeff Wheeland, R-Loyalsock Township, and Garth Everett, R-Muncy. The bill would change the fact that when it comes to judicial agencies, only financial records are available to the public.

“Even though over two years have passed, this project has been top of mind both to us and throughout the state of Pennsylvania, and we expect the bill to be enacted,” Oravec said.

The bill would make public the names of people seeking an elected office through an appointment process and allow the applicant to be subjected to the same level of scrutiny as any publicly announced candidate in a typical election season.

After Benninghoff filed the legislation, due to time constraints in a presidential election year, it failed to come up for a vote in 2016, and will be re-introduced in 2017, according to Oravec. He added that it has bipartisan support and is expected to pass quickly.

Alleged coercion

The Sun-Gazette was not the only one uncovering information through Right-to-Know requests in the county.

Joshua Young, of Montoursville, submitted a request to the Montoursville Area School District in an effort to uncover the coercion of a board member to vote in favor of board appointee Karen Wright.

The emails eventually were acquired by Young, and, in one particular email from board member Robert Logue to Wright, he admitted that he was coerced by three other board members who threatened to quit if he did not vote for her.

The emails also uncovered a number of additional issues with the school board, including infighting, increasing security at school board meetings and making requests for certain members to resign.