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State and Local Government › Open Records › Public Records

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How City & State Government Agencies Can Scale Open Records Request Processes

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In the always-on, hyper-connected digital age, you'd think it would be relatively straightforward to produce records for Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) or open records requests, but it can be incredibly labor intensive,...more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

OOR (Office of Open Records) Holds that “Frank Curry” FOIA Buddy Requests Can Be Denied for Being Anonymous

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In Frank Curry and FOIABuddy v. South Western School District, AP 2024-1311, a school district (“District”) received a request for records related to IT operations, contracts, staff, and IT budget from Frank Curry and...more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

Commonwealth Court Holds that OOR Erred in Not Allowing Agency an Opportunity to Review Responsive Records for Exemptions after...

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In Pa. Office of the Governor v. Brelje, 2024 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 65, at *1 (Commw. Ct. Feb. 23, 2024), the Office of Open Records (“OOR”) concluded that requests for all incoming and outgoing email for two agency employees over...more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

OOR Confirms that Local Agencies Can Provide Responsive Records in PDF Format

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In Forrest v. Erie City, AP 2023-1701 (Sept. 28, 2023), Erie City responded to a request for a list of all rental properties registered and licensed in the City in an Excel spreadsheet by providing a PDF conversion of the...more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

Commonwealth Court Holds that the Failure to Identify a Transaction or Activity of an Agency in a Request for Records Under the...

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Methacton Sch. Dist. v. Off. of Open Records of Cmmw., 250 C.D. 2021, 2021 WL 6122163, at *1 (Pa. Cmmw. Dec. 28, 2021). The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania holds that a request for the emails of four individuals over a...more

Houston Harbaugh, P.C.

Understanding the Right to Know Law and Why Certain Documents May be Protected

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You may notice water being diverted from a neighboring property onto your property. Or, perhaps you have concerns that the property located above yours seems to be shifting, and you fear a landslide....more

Reveal

Practical Solutions To Public Records Request Challenges

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When it comes to data and records management functions at government agencies, recent years have been trying times. A number of concerning trends have continued to be a factor, such as the growth of the data generated by...more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

What Every School Board Member Should Know Before Using Social Media

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As an elected school board member, you are looked to as a community leader and are expected to take a leadership role in representing your school district’s interests. In fulfilling this role, many school board members...more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

OOR Continues to Hold that Names and Home Addresses Are Protected by the Constitutional Right to Privacy, but that Tax Map Parcel...

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In Rosner v. Buckingham Township, AP 2020-1364 (“Rosner II”), the Township redacted residents’ names, home addresses, and tax map parcel I.D. numbers from the requested invoices setting forth charges to residents under the...more

Lathrop GPM

No Choice in the Matter – Recent Victory for Lathrop GPM Client to Have Significant Impact on Government Disclosure of...

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In March, Lathrop GPM published a Litigation Alert: Tell Me More – Compliance with Open Records Laws Amidst the Coronavirus, which discussed the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak on public records requests. That...more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

OOR Explains Duty to Provide 911 Records

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In Serfass v. Northampton County, AP 2019-1664 (Nov. 7, 2019), the Requester sought 911 call records.  The County denied the Request, arguing that the responsive records were exempt Section 708(b)(18) of the RTKL, which...more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

OOR Confirms that Requesters Can Seek the Same Records Twice Under the RTKL

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Previously, this blog address how the Office of Open Records, in Steinheiser v. Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority, AP 2019-1877 (Nov. 6, 2019), confirmed that local agencies are not required to provide original...more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

OOR Confirms that Agencies are Not Required to Provide Original Documents When Responding to RTKL Request

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In Steinheiser v. Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority, AP 2019-1877 (Nov. 6, 2019), the Requester sought the business card of SEPTA’s Open Records Officer.  In response, SEPTA provided a scanned copy of the card. ...more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

OOR Confirms that Records Created or Obtained through the Safe2Say Something Program are Not Public Records

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In Maciejewski v. Southern Columbia Area School District, AP 2019-1094 (Sept 16, 2019), the Request sought all emails between 10 District email addresses over a 14-day time frame.  The District argued that certain responsive...more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

OOR Determines that Emails from Members of the Public to an Agency are Records “of” the Agency

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In Ruland v. Southern York County School District, AP 2019-0567 (Aug. 8, 2019), the OOR concluded that, in certain circumstances, emails from community members to an agency can be public records. In this case, the...more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

OOR Determines that Records Submitted to the OOR are not Records “of” the OOR

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In Friedman v. Pennsylvania Office of Open Records, AP 2019-1182 (Aug. 28, 2019), the Office of Open Records (“OOR”) discussed whether all records delivered to and in the possession of an agency are records “of” that agency...more

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Commonwealth Court Establishes Test to Determine Whether Volunteer Fire Companies are Subject to the RTKL

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An entity must be a Commonwealth agency, a local agency, a judicial agency or a legislative agency to be subject to the RTKL. 65 P.S. § 67.302.  In Pysher v. Clinton Township Vol. Fire Co., 1237 C.D. 2017, 2019 WL 2017782, at...more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

OOR Provides Guidance as to when Requests for Emails are Insufficiently Specific

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We’ve addressed whether RTKL request are sufficiently specific before, but it’s worth reexamining the issue again in the context of requests for electronic correspondence because requesters frequently make broad requests for...more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

Agencies Are Not Required to Identify Which Records are Responsive to Each Part of a Request (901)

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When responding to large requests, Open Records Officer frequently identify records that are responsive to one part of a request but not another.  Does the response letter need to identify which records are responsive to each...more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

OOR Holds that Borough’s Use of Taser Policy is Partially Exempt

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Last week, we discussed how the OOR concluded that, for the most part, Taser discharge reports are public records. This week, we’ll examine whether policies related to Tasers are public records. In Ciavaglia v. Newtown...more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

OOR Holds that Zoning Permit Application is not Exempt under the Pennsylvania Uniform Construction Code

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The 30 exceptions set forth in Section 708(b) of RTKL are not an exhaustive list of records that can or must be withheld from disclosure under the RTKL.  Instead, Section 102 of the RTKL contains a catch-all, stating that any...more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

ORR Holds that the Investigative File of a Municipality’s Insurance Company is Not a Public Record

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Under the RTKL, two groups of records are accessible—those records in an agency’s actual or constructive possession reached directly under Section 901 of the RTKL and records that are only in the possession of third parties...more

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Appointment Calendars Are Not Public Records (Section 708(b)(12))

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Open Records Officers will occasionally receive requests for the appointment calendars of certain agency employees and officers. These calendars, whether electronic or paper, typically contain a schedule daily activities and...more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

Agencies Can Refer Requesters to their Websites When Responding to Requests (Section 704(b))

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In a previous post, we discussed how the OOR in Stooky v. Unionville-Chadds School District, AP 2019-0484 (April 18, 2019) determined that a Requester could seek records under the RTKL even though she already possessed the...more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

Information Contained in an Agency’s Database is “Record” under the RTKL (Section 705)

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Pursuant to Section 705 of the RTKL, when responding to a request, “an agency shall not be required to create a record which does not currently exist or to compile, maintain, format or organize a record in a manner in which...more

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