EDITORIAL: School board can’t bargain with right to know

April 27, 2008

EDITORIAL: Board can't bargain with right to know

The Issue: The Wyomissing School Board discloses a confidentiality agreement linked to a tax-abatement deal for a $70 million project.

Our Opinion: The school board had no right to sign such a deal and bargain away the public's right to know.

Members of the Wyomising School Board may have thought they were doing what was best for their constituents when they kept a $480,000 donation to the district confidential, but it was a violation of the Open Records Act.

The donation, made by Jeffrey D. and Michele K. Hettinger, was linked to a tax-abatement deal for a $70 million residential-retail project called Wyomissing Square on property the Hettingers had owned.

As part of the deal, the Hettingers and the district drew up a contract that tied the $480,000 donation to the school board's acceptance of the abatement plan, and the board agreed to keep the donation confidential.

But the school board cannot bargain away the public's right to know under the Open Records Act, according to a Commonwealth Court ruling in a 2006 case involving the New Castle School District in Lawrence County, northwest of Pittsburgh.

In that case the court ruled that the district and three administrators had to pay the New Castle News more than $8,800 in legal fees and court costs because they refused to give the paper access to a public record.

According to court records, the district had negotiated a court settlement in another case that involved three students and the school dress code and refused to make the settlement public in accordance with a confidentiality agreement in the settlement.

The students claimed their free-speech rights were violated when they were suspended for wearing unapproved patches on their school uniforms.

"A school district may not contract away the public's right of access to public records because the purpose of access is to keep open the doors of government, to prohibit secrets, to scrutinize the actions of public officials and to make public officials accountable in their use of public funds," Judge Rochelle S. Friedman wrote.

And that is exactly what the Wyomissing School Board attempted to do.

School board President Daniel K. Snyder said the board adhered to the Hettingers' request for anonymity when the agreement was signed last year.

"We weren't trying to hide it," Snyder said. "We were asked to keep it anonymous."
But the school board had no right to agree to that request.

The same was true two years ago when Oley Valley School Board approved a lease with Nextel Spectrum Acquisition Corp.

Despite requests from residents for information, the board refused to provide any details about the lease citing a nondisclosure agreement.

Two years before that Reading City Council signed a confidentiality agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice in a matter concerning the fate of former Angelica Lake and Fritz's Island.

The Reading Eagle filed a lawsuit alleging City Council violated the state Sunshine Act when it entered into a pact with Justice Department officials without informing the public.

In each case elected officials, who swore to uphold the laws of the commonwealth, ignored one of those laws by trying to keep the public's business out of sight of the public.

In each case the information eventually became public, and the officials claimed they simply were doing what they thought was best for the people they represented.

What is always best is when the public officials comply with the law and perform their duties in full view of their constituents. It is never best when they try to bargain away the public's right to know.

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