Fike versus the Office of Open Records

Who ya gonna believe?

In this corner, responding to fellow board member Beverly Beal's written request for public information, is Harry Fike, chairman of the Fayette County Housing Authority, who writes that she must "provide the authority with a written statement clarifying the purpose for which you seek the requested information." ("Beal seeks to review authority documents," HeraldStandard.com, July 8)

And in this corner, straight from the website of the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records, the definitive authority on the state's Right-to-Know Law, comes this question and answer:

Can a public body ask why a person wants (to) obtain the information? [Section 1308]
No. The law prohibits a public body from requiring a person "to disclose the purpose or motive in requesting access to records."

http://openrecords.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=4434&&PageID=462051&level=2&css=L2&mode=2&in_hi_userid=2&cached=true#ques6

"No" sounds like a pretty clear answer to us, when it comes to whether or not a public agency in Pennsylvania can ask a person what they intend to do with the public information they are requesting.

It doesn't matter what Beal (or anyone else) wants to do with such information. They can laminate it for posterity, make copies to distribute as gifts for Christmas, or use it for toilet paper in a pinch.

We wonder why HeraldStandard.com reporter Patty Yauger didn't take three seconds to search the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records website, under "FAQs" to find the answer we got. It certainly would have added an interesting -- and important -- perspective to her story. (She can still call Terry Mutchler, the executive director of the Office of Open Records, to verify if Fike is right or full of you-know-what.)

Instead, readers were treated to a verbal regurgitation of the circumstances behind the other four board members' "censure" of Beal arising from a packet discovered in a restaurant, one that Fike says contained some "scary" stuff.

That was May 30. It has now early July. It has been five weeks, which seems plenty of time for state police to either charge Beal with a crime, thus supporting the need to censure her and initiate action to remove her from the board, or exonerate her, thus exposing all this hulabaloo as the political witch hunt she says it is.

This isn't exactly the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, so it shouldn't take too long to wrap up the case.

None of that, however, has anything to do with Beal's request to see all the payments made to Cohen and Grigsby, the Pittsburgh law firm that the housing authority retains in addition to its regular solicitor. It is also the firm that the FCHA reportedly instructed to hire a private investigator to snoop into Packetgate.

Beal, as a citizen or a board member, is entitled to see those financial records and to get copies if she wishes. That is the law in Pennsylvania -- and the law says you don't have to state the reason for asking for public information.

We would love to see everyone in Fayette County who cares about open government make a formal written request to the housing authority, asking to see all of the Cohen and Grigsby payment vouchers for the past year. Would Fike send each of them a reply, asking them to state the reason?

And If he did, how could anyone even remotely construe that as openness?

As an aside, you may remember the last time the Fayette County Housing Authority had one of its critics investigated, and how that one turned out.