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Yesterday, I wrote of the success in moving forward a Vexatious Requester Resolution that is hoped will eventually end the abuse of the Right To Know Law (RTKL).

As currently written, the RTKL affords the ability for a single resident to hobble the normal day-to-day operations of any small government agency, such as West Easton and others throughout the state, by submitting an unlimited number of often onerous requests.

Since the 2016 election, when West Easton voters removed the main barriers to government transparency from office, new faces on West Easton Council implemented sweeping changes and provided tools to make information available and easily accessible to residents.

Most notable is that our Borough Manager/Agency Open Records Officer (AORO) has full discretionary power to provide information to a resident immediately at the service window, if the information can be easily found, requires no redaction of personal information needed, and it isn’t time consuming in making copies of the pages sought in the request.

Despite our best effort to provide information and expecting the more common RTK requests that might, for example, ask to obtain a copy of a signed contract, or other useful information, our Agency Open Records Officer (AORO) has had to deal with answering some bizarre requests. Providing “metadata” contained in emails, “browser history” on all the borough’s computers, and resident info and emails, of those who opted in to Emergency Management Text Messaging, to name just a few.

While the current RTKL offers the ability to deny an individual request fully or partially, the denial often results in the requestor filing an appeal with the Office of Open Records (OOR) that must be answered again by the requested agency, and if the appeal is again denied by the OOR the requestor can move on to the The Court of Common Pleas for a decision.

The Court of Common Pleas is available to either party, if the OOR rules against them. Both levels of appeals to the OOR or the Court can result in the cost of a solicitor getting involved to properly answer it.

Even if that one request is successfully litigated by the agency, it still has to deal with all the other requests from that one person – all of them having to be dealt with individually.

For small agencies that come under attack from a vexatious requestor the result can be a staff member spending 20-30 hours (sometimes more) of a 40 hour work week searching for information on computers, in paper files, from individuals named in the request, and other sources in order to answer what can sometimes be those bizarre requests for information.

Borough Manager Joan Heebner, who is our AORO, has received approximately 115 individual requests since January 1st of this year, from just one resident. The amount factors in that the RTK Request forms submitted have often contained sequentially numbered requests on the form.

For West Easton, a community of 1,250 people, that’s 1 request for every 11 residents in the Borough.

An influx of them came on the heels of the resident’s failed frivolous lawsuits against West Easton. The Court Order that followed her losses, prohibits future attempts by our ne’er-do-well filing lawsuits against the Borough, unless approved by a Judge before it can be filed.

Restricted from filing frivolous lawsuits, she has turned heavily to social media and RTKs as a weapon.

Putting our number of 1 request per 11 residents into perspective, the City of Easton, with almost 28,000 residents has received approximately 85 RTK requests since the beginning of this year. Their total being submitted from various residents, businesses, and news media.

For Easton, that’s 1 request for every 360 residents, being handled by a staff far larger than our own.

So, how can the Pennsylvania’s RTKL be changed to solve the problem of a vexatious requester without removing transparency in government?

Pennsylvania’s Office of Open Records (OOR) states, “Citizens should use good judgment in seeking records from the public body and not use this law to harass or overburden a public body from performing its job.”

The OOR wrongly assumes everyone has good judgment and though it’s nice of them to say, that sentiment is not found in the actual law. The RTKL does not define what constitutes harassment, or overburdening.

I’m hoping Pennsylvania legislators will model legislation that will mirror Connecticut’s Vexatious Requester Act (CVRA) . Having met with a handful of state representatives from different districts, I gave a copy of it to them. They found it to be something Pennsylvania could adopt.

CVRA was signed into law in 2018 by Connecticut’s governor. In response to some Connecticut citizens abusing their RTKL, a Connecticut public agency can now appeal to an independent Commission for a Hearing.

If the Commission approves a Hearing be held on the agency’s submitted documentation, it will then put on record the frequency of requests, information sought, appeals submitted.

The Commission can also weigh the most important test of “vexatious.”

The Commission will be able to view past conflicts with the agency or a member of the agency, social media posts, public statements made, letters and emails written, and other evidence on the requester, including how they used the information received.

All this information can demonstrate the requester isn’t using the information sought for the public good, but as a tool for harassment, or a means of overburdening the agency.

The Commission, following the hearing where both parties are invited to attend and testify, then considers the overall conduct and intent of the requester, not on a particular request.

If determined that the requester is vexatious the commission can impose monetary penalties up to $1000 and restrict future RTK requests for up to one year.

With PSAB and PSATS now lobbying for a change to the RTKL, there may be a day on the horizon that will put an end to a good law being abused, to the detriment of all others in the community.

“Vexatious Requester” legislation is needed. Not to suppress transparency, but to prevent the harassment and overburdening of a public agency, by people with a personal grievance and an ax to grind.

People with “good judgment,” as mentioned by the OOR have no fear of being labeled “vexatious.” It’s only those who promise to bury an agency in Right To Know Requests, who should be concerned.