Sun-Shiny Day in LNT, Not Quite...

Last week I wrote about Lower Nazareth Township Manager, Secretary, Treasurer, Timm Tenges' decision to attack Citizen Forum founder Joe Greene during a public meeting (read it here).

The more I thought about this, the more amazed I became.

Tenges is paid $85,000 by the taxpayers of Lower Nazareth (see the League of Women's Voters site). One of his jobs was to complete a revised web site for the township. Funds were allocated last year, but the site has not been completed.

The issue was raised by Greene while defending himself at the meeting and the minutes reporting the citizen attack note:

Mr. Tenges recognizes the importance on the website and stated that it is close to being done, but is not quite completed. The fact that it is incomplete, Mr. Tenges admitted is his fault, but stated that unfortunately other issues take priority;

So, the paid worker can't complete the web site project, but the citizen who takes the time to fill the void by creating a site, paying the domain addresses, paying the hosting, and not being paid for his service can get it done and is attacked for doing so.

Plus, I found out from Joe Greene that every document on his site that has "approved" stamped on it, he had to pay for. LNT charges .25 per page. Four page document, one dollar (and you should see the number of documents on the site and archive).

And, because LNT wants its citizens to have this information, in addition to the fee they charge, you can't just stop in and pick them up. You must officially request the documents (they do allow email requests) and they are typically ready in two to four business days.

Given all that, during the attack Tenges, despite his own inability to complete a responsibility of his job, takes exception with Greene for not posting more official documents on his site:

Mr. Tenges questioned why, if Mr. Greene is working for the good of the residents, he doesn’t ask for items such as the Fire Company Report.

One day, I hope, LNT will embrace open-government and let the light shine in.

Sing with me Timm:

Two Sites Worth Looking At

The Morning Call today had an editorial that notes two web sites that may be of interest to readers:

www.openrecordspa.org

www.democracyrisingpa.com

Each is to encourage more public access to records and information.

Sunshine on a Rainy Day

The warm weather was refreshing to start Sunshine Week and earlier posts on the Sunshine Law and Nazareth Area and Obtaining public information via Web sites leave me with what I consider to be the third important aspect of open government and that is being able to ask questions of government and get answers.

My experience in this regard is primarily with the Borough of Nazareth and Nazareth Area School District (NASD).

The Borough, until recently as noted earlier this week, did not have much information on its web site, so you had to either go to a meeting, call the Borough office, or email a member or officer of Council. Since the Borough does not have email of its own, oftentimes the email provided are personal accounts for volunteers, not full time employees and as a result I don't expect an immediate response.

The most effective way to get answers from the Borough is to call or ask during Public Comment. I've found the members to be very open and willing to explain without being condescending when questions are asked by the public at this time.

There is much room for improvement, but as the web site is expanded and more information is made available, there will hopefully be less need to seek information. Further, it would be nice if an email were set up similar to the NASD where a single address would forward to all Board Members and Officers. And non-private email would be available for use mayor@nazarethborough.gov (not a real address just an example) by officials.

The NASD I've found is hit and miss in responding. I've had readers indicate to me that their emails have gone unanswered, and I myself have had instances where I felt too much time was taken and that the response was less than satisfying. I've also had instances where I've received an immediate response. The NASD, unlike the Borough, has a dedicated, full-time staff with a corporate email structure so getting and responding to email ought to be done in a very timely fashion.

I have very few business colleagues who do not respond within a day even when traveling. The NASD responses tend to be in terms of weeks without even a "we received your inquiry and will reply once the information is available" or some similar acknowledgment that the issue is being looked into.

To their credit, in the fall, the NASD did add email to its administration list and created the administration@ and schoolboard@ addresses for the public to better communicate questions and concerns.

A recent experience I had is in my view a problem with the current response process to public inquiries and maybe sharing it publicly will result in positive changes that will benefit everyone.

On 2/23/07 at 8:30 a.m. I sent the following email to the administration@ address:

Was hoping someone could provide me with the following:

How many regular elementary bus runs do we currently have?
What is the average daily ridership for elementary?
How many secondary bus runs do we currently have?
What is the average daily ridership for secondary?
What is the current cost per bus per run (elementary and secondary combined as I recall it being set) in 2006-07?

Thank you and have a great weekend,

On 3/8/07 at 7:34 a.m. I followed up with an email to both the administration@ and schoolboard@ address with the following:

I submitted the question below on February 23, 2007 and have not yet received a response.

If you could please provide me with this information or the latest available information, it would be most appreciated.

Thank you,

I did receive a response from Board President Don Keller that day indicating that I would be receiving the information shortly. On 3/9/07 I received a package in the mail containing the School Bus Contract and a printout of the total students transported (which was in the board budget materials but didn't answer any of my questions). On 3/10/07 I sent the following to Don Keller, administration, and schoolboard:

Don,

I appreciate your help and being the only person to personally respond to this request.

I received in the mail on Friday an envelope with a copy of the current bus contract and a PDE-2089 Summary of Pupils Transported (2005-2006). There was no contact information or note indicating who sent it (return address had no office/person only NASD, 1 Education Plaza).

Unfortunately, these materials answered one question (the cost of a daily bus run) out of five that I asked.

I'll try to make the request easier by asking:

How many regular elementary bus runs does each school have (ie 4 for Shafer, 6 Bushkill, 6 Lower Nazareth)?
How many secondary bus runs do we currently have (ie 14)?

If we don't readily have available the average daily ridership for elementary and secondary, I will guesstimate this number based on enrollments and count of pupil transportation, which I have from posted materials.

I am requesting this information because by observation, most buses appear to be less than full and in light of the current budget challenges and cuts I'd like to see what the rostered reality is compared to this observation. As I'm sure you are aware our transportation costs have increased from $2.19M in 2002-03 to $3M in the 2007-08 and as a non-classroom impacting budget line this could be an area where cuts could be made to provide for requests that have been cut (such as elementary lap tops or new teachers) that do impact the classroom learning.

Any assistance would be very much appreciated.

This correspondence resulted in a phone call to my home on 3/14/07 from Judy Zavalydriga, Director of Human Resources & Transportation. From work I returned the phone call, which is not my preference in a cubicle environment email is much easier, but it didn't matter as I got voicemail. On the voice mail I again requested an email in response to my questions as I'd rather not be making personal calls at work.

As of this morning I've not yet received the email with the answer to the questions I asked. At 8:20 a.m. just prior to publishing this post I called the school, asked for Judy and was told that they didn't think she was in yet, but I could have her voice mail. So again I left a message requesting the information be emailed to me.

It has now been three weeks and the information that I requested should not be difficult to obtain, instead it ought to be a fundamental metric to evaluate the efficiency of our transportation system.

The point is that it should not be this difficult to get a few basic questions answered, no matter the subject or person making the request and this is an area of improvement that exists in different ways for both the Borough and NASD. Having said that I have seen improvement over the past twelve months and that is a good thing. Let's hope there is even more twelve months from now during next year's Sunshine Week.

More Sunshine...

Yesterday I addressed Open Meetings in Nazareth over the past year in recognition of Sunshine Week. Today, I'll be discussing public records and information.

In the past, the only way to obtain records was to physically visit an office between normal business hours. Of course these were the same normal business hours you also kept and as a result while possibly legally accessible, information and records were often difficult for individuals to obtain.

Today, with web sites and the internet, public records and information are more available than ever before, but the resources needed to get these materials online have resulted in those with the deepest pockets providing the most information in this way, while those with the least have struggled to do so.

The Federal Government and Commonwealth of PA have spent considerable money to have very robust web sites that can provide all manner of information including tax forms and renewal of vehicle registration. PA's site does require a fairly extensive registration to access certain information, which I'm not a big fan of, but sometimes you either have to give the info or not get what you want.

The County of Northampton's web site, while not as extensive as the state or federal government (nor is this body as large thank goodness) has a lot of information including forms and it has tax assessment information online in a separate site (visit ncpub.org here).

The Nazareth Area School District has regularly posted its Board Meeting Agendas, Budgets, and Minutes on its site in PDF format along with other state reports and information. Daily information is available as well (I'll address communications later this week). The NASD is instituting an online grade system for parents to be able to view their child's records through the web site. During the contract discussions with the NAEA, the NASD did begin to post more information. I was pleased that a post on this site lamenting that a press announcement was not available online led to its being posted and as the negotiations continued health plans, contracts, and other relevant information was posted so community members could make judgments of their own.

One area of improvement for the NASD would be to additionally publish the reports that are referenced on the agenda from committees and administrators. And further, I for one, would like to have the ability to read an HTML agenda that had links to the items in the agenda. For instance, where it says Principal's Reports, there would be a hot link from the specific principal's name to the actual report that was submitted. Similarly, if the budget is referenced, a hot link would take a reader to the budget. PDF is fast being replaced by HTML for this very reason. The sooner the NASD and other governmental bodies pick up on this shift, the better we will all be able to access information.

On the municipal level, the Borough of Nazareth has struggled with its site over the past year or so, but has taken steps to make it more valuable to residents. To that end the site redesign has a more current look and feel and the agenda and minutes section have been updated. The minutes will only be posted after they are approved at the next Council meeting, so there will be a delay in receiving the information online from the Borough.

It will also be interesting to see how the past minutes and agendas will be archived on the site. Right now, when you click on agenda or minutes there is only one month showing and it is in html (a good thing) but not dated or uniquely tagged in the URL, so I'm wondering if this will be removed with the next set or if an archive page will be created so residents can go to past minutes and agendas. Again, it is an improvement, but a work in progress.

Another area that has been questioned in regard to records is the reporting of police incidents in the Borough (as well as the others). Individuals from both the Express-Times and the Morning Call have commented to me that it is difficult to get "police blotter" information from the Nazareth area.

It would be nice if this information were available online, especially if it could be done using a Google maps mash-up. Data could be overlayed with mapping programs to provide residents with a visual of where crimes or traffic incidents in general or of a specific type have taken place over a specified period of time. One of the best known sites nationally of this type is ChicagoCrime.org

IncidentLog is a site that allows a local area to add its data to their site which uses Google maps at no charge. There are also other free mapping services that allow users to create maps and plug any type of data into them. The most important point is that there are current means to provide this data to the public to make them aware of what is happening in their own community without having to wait until a series of incidents has occurred to find out (as was the case at the start of this year). On the plus side, the Colonial Regional Police Department serving Lower Nazareth among others, does include year end incident reports per municipality served.

Nazareth is not alone as it relates to its web site and the information available. In many ways it leads the area municipalities. Lower Nazareth does not provide meeting minutes nor does it provide agendas. There is information on the community, links, and a link to the Colonial Regional Police web site, but that is about it. Similarly, Bushkill Township has news on the home page, but its officials link has names only (no email), and there are no agendas or meetings. The calendar is also from 2006. Finally, Upper Nazareth Township does not have a web site, but they have budgeted to develop one this year.

The web site is not the only way for a government body to distribute information, but it is one of the best ways to share information with residents in today's world. Residents do not need to make a request, they can simply get it. The more informed the people of a community, the better off the community.

Let's hope as we move forward that these municipalities will work toward providing more information for their residents.

Daylight Savings and Sunshine

If you missed it, Daylight Saving Time began yesterday, Sunday March 11, and so too did the National Sunshine Week.

According to SunshineWeek.org, the event is for, "newspapers, magazines, broadcasters, Web sites and others [to] continue a dialogue about the importance of open government to the public".

In Sunday's Morning Call, Mark Scolforo of The Associated Press, wrote an article, "Lawmakers may revise unpopular open-records law" (read it here) that addressed the poor condition of the state's public records access. In the article it notes that, "Open-records advocates have long sought to define all Pennsylvania government records as public records, then provide a list of specific exceptions – the approach most other states currently take." However, "For 50 years, Pennsylvania law has guaranteed access only to accounts, vouchers, contracts, minutes, orders or decisions – and court rulings have further narrowed the definition."

On a local level, in the Borough of Nazareth in particular, significant gains were made in regard to compliance with the State Sunshine Law (read the law here) after significant pressure and a lawsuit filed by resident Bernie O'Hare.

• In July during discussions regarding the new Government Center, Councilman Davis provided background on the committee based on a question I asked. During his explanation he stated that the committee was in compliance with the Sunshine Law because they didn't have a quorum.
• I questioned this assertion on the basis that the committee did not announce its meetings, nor did it make its meetings open to the public. Therefore they were not in compliance with the law.
• Solicitor Pierce contended the meetings did not need to be open and were not subject to the law.
  
• Resident Bernie O'Hare filed a suit against the Borough.
• In the fall, Councilman Bowers elected to again hold meetings in violation of the Sunshine Law for the transition Committee.
• When residents, specifically Becky Butz, challenged these meetings to be open to the public, Council declared they would check with the Bank to see how they could accept people (the meetings were being held there).
• Butz gained access to the meeting, but was told the public could only sit and watch. No comment or questions were allowed.
• Following the incident, Councilman Bowers was removed from the chairmanship and Councilman Herbst replaced him.
• Herbst then made a motion that as a matter of procedure all meetings would be open, unless they couldn't be (legal and personnel discussions). Until that time, Committee Chairs could decide if the meetings would be announced or made open to the public.
  

It took months of work by many different individuals, but significant progress was made.

The issue at the Borough level was obviously noted by others. Earlier this year School Board Director Tom Maher questioned his fellow members in regard to Sunshine Law Compliance during an Executive Session. He brought the matter up publicly as well, apparently not in agreement with the decision that it was compliant. Whether or not Maher was correct, the important thing for the public is that the issue is top of mind with at least some of our elected officials and that is a good thing.

If you want to learn more about Sunshine Week, the organization also has a blog you can read.

MC's White Questions Board on Sunshine Law

Morning Call columnist Bill White today questioned the NASD School Board regarding its January 8th Executive Session during which one member stated he believed they were in violation of the PA Sunshine Law by discussing the proposed pool (read the column here).

In his column White notes that he contacted several school officials involved in the situation and "discovered something strange. I kept hearing new, different accounts of what happened behind closed doors that night."

He also spoke with Maher and noted, "he laughed at the idea that he was confused because he came in at the middle — and it had nothing to do with litigation (this was the reason given to allow the conversation to take place in executive session)."

White closes the column summing up his take by saying, "Very mysterious. I'll tell you all about it next time."

Thanks to Bill White for giving this issue a regional voice. I for one will be very interested to read what more he has learned.


Here is the background:

The incident was first reported here in the post using the meeting notes supplied by Brad Moulton. You can read that post here. The brief exchange between Maher and Keller was noted at the very end of the report as it occurred during the second public comment period. There was no mention of the issue in the article by the MC on the meeting the next morning.

In advance of creating a specific post on this issue, I sent an email to each of the seven Board members for whom Board President Don Keller spoke for at the meeting. I received one bounced email (Audenried) and two responses (Callie and McDonald). I also received further clarification from Maher explaining why he made the comment. You can read that post here.

Following the post that included these comments, I received an email from Superintendent Vic Lesky supporting the position that the Sunshine Law was not violated. I included his email in full in a new post. You can read the NASD response here.

NASD Responds to Sunshine Law Post

On Wednesday, I received an email (copied in its entirety below) from NASD Superintendent Vic Lesky, Ed.D. While I had contacted the seven board members, I had not contacted the Superintendent or Solicitor prior to writing the previous post (read it here) on the potential Sunshine Law Violation raised by School Director Tom Maher.

While I did question what could have been discussed regarding the pool that was covered by the sunshine law, it was a board member who raised the question of violating it, not me.

Dr. Lesky's response is predicated on counsel's interpretation of the sunshine law. In fair disclosure, I've known and been friends with the solicitor and his family for as long as I can remember. Having said that, what we learned this summer with Borough Council is that the accuracy of the interpretation, in the end, can only be decided by a court. By this, I'm not saying that it is right or wrong (I'm not an attorney and don't plan on arguing any of them in court any time soon), only that it is right until proven (if that is the case) wrong in court.

Putting the solicitor's approval aside, I was also interested by the statement regarding 'contractual obligations' the Board would face 'concerning the construction of a pool as an alternate in the Middle School project'.

This says to me that we have contracts in place that would be affected by the construction of a pool of our own. Again, I'm no attorney, so maybe someone has another interpretation of this, that makes more sense, but the only thing I can imagine is Nazareth's contract for the swim team. If this would extend into the time when the new pool, if it were constructed, were opened, the NASD may be contractually bound to pay out the balance of the contract without ever using the alternate facility.

This amount would seem to be insignificant in the scope of the pool itself and it doesn't seem consistent with Mr. Maher's statement that, "alternatives for handling the pool decision were being proposed."

Having said that, here is the email I received:


Ross

Mr. Moritz was in attendance and approved the information I gave to the Board concerning the contractual obligations they would be facing concerning the construction of a pool as an alternate in the Middle School project. There was no questions asked, discussions held, or decisions made concerning the pool. The Board listened to community input during the Act 34 hearing and any discussion regarding the pool will take place at the regularly scheduled public board meetings. This Board has been very diligent in its observing sunshine regulations. For the public to have an impression that this Board diregards the sunshiine laws would definitely be unfair to them as individuals or as a Board.

Thanks for your concern

Vic Lesky

Victor D. Lesky, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools
Nazareth Area School District

NASD Sunshine Law Violation?

Last Monday during the closing public comments, NASD Board Director Tom Maher stated publicly that he believed the Board may have violated the Sunshine Law during executive session.

It was noted that the discussion involved the pool.

Board President Don Keller stated that 8 out of 9 didn't see it that way. The meeting ended shortly thereafter.

I got to wondering about what could be covered by the Sunshine Law related to the inclusion of the swimming pool at the MS during Executive Session prior to a Board Meeting and the day before the Act 34 hearing on the building and the pool's inclusion in the plans. Typically, a rule of thumb is that legal action and personnel are covered, all else should be discussed publicly.

Wanting to give each Board Member an opportunity to state if they in fact did side with Keller, I sent them each (not including Keller his position was clear) an email this week using each individual's address from the NASD web site (Director Audenreid's was returned as undeliverable) and asked that they reply by end of day Friday so I could write this post over the weekend.

I received two responses, from Angela Callie and Linda McDonald, out of the seven. I appreciate both of them responding and wonder why the others didn't, though I wasn't entirely surprised.

In short each said had Mr. Maher arrived on time he would have understood what was being discussed and why. Both were adamant that the Sunshine Law was not violated.

This brought me back to the situation with the Borough Council this summer. Until the issue was raised and discussed no one on Council even considered there was a violation because they trusted their legal counsel who said it was not a violation. Further review and consideration did not determine it was in fact a violation (the legal suit was dropped before a judge ruled), but Council took it upon themselves to change the way they did business to be more compliant instead of what one might call minimally compliant (though I'd still contend they violated the act).

If the Board members were told why what they were discussing was not a violation of the Sunshine Law as I am led to believe by the statement that Mr. Maher arrived late and did not understand the context of the discussion, I am led to believe that at the very least the Board was on the minimally compliant side of the equation.

Board member Callie noted, "The Sunshine Law permit us to consult with an attorney or other professional advisor's regarding information or strategies in connection with issues on identifiable complaints which could be expected to be filed."

This indicates that the NASD was expecting legal action in regard to the issue of the swimming pool or they were not being compliant.

I also contacted Director Maher, who raised the issue in the first place. Regardless of whether he is right or not, I do think it is admirable that he would broach the subject when in doubt, because the only accountability is based on the individuals in the room. If no one says anything, there can't be a violation. Even if he's wrong, it is good to know that the topic of the Sunshine Law and what it entails is being discussed and considered.

Here is what Mr. Maher had to say:

"The agenda distributed to board members for Executive Session has two sections. The first is titled "For Your Information" and the other "For Discussion". The For Discussion section of the January 8th executive session agenda had as item 1. Act 34 Pool Discussion.

When I interrupted this part of the executive session, alternatives for handling the pool decision were being proposed.

My position is this discusion was neither personnel nor legal related, the only two valid reasons for an executive session under the Sunshine Law. It should have been discussed in a public meeting."

Mr. Maher's position on this would seem rather hard to argue, yet eight of our nine elected officials support holding the conversation regarding this obviously heated topic behind closed doors and in apparent violation of the Sunshine Law.