After receiving a Right-to-Know request Thursday, Pottsville Area School District officials released the names of the 14 part-time security officers the school board hired Wednesday night.
Superintendent Jeffrey S. Zwiebel, Business Manager Stephen Curran and solicitor Richard A. Thornburg said Thursday the school board did not challenge the Pennsylvania Sunshine Law by refusing to announce the names of the officers hired at the school board's September work session Wednesday at the Howard S. Fernsler Academic Center.
In an interview at the center Thursday, Curran suggested the school board has the right to withhold the names of the people it hires at public meetings, and the board has the right to insist the public file Right-to-Know forms for that information.
"Just because we didn't give it to you when you immediately asked for it doesn't mean it's a refusal or denial. It would take five days of us refusing to give you the information for you to say there's a violation. There's no timeliness clause in the Right-to-Know Law," Curran said.
Melissa Bevan Melewsky, media law counsel with the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, Harrisburg, did not agree with Curran's interpretation of the Pennsylvania Sunshine Act or the Right-to-Know Law.
"Using that logic, the board wouldn't have to provide the names of any proposed new employees - teachers, janitors, lunch ladies, etcetera - at public meetings before they vote, and would only have to provide the names of those hired if someone filed a formal, written RTK request for information. That's just not the way public bodies function. Who is hired by a public agency is a public record and must be announced publicly before the vote takes place. The RTK law serves a different purpose than the Sunshine Act, and although both are public access laws, they are not one and the same and one can't take the place of the other," Melewsky said.
The Sunshine Act requires all official action to occur at a public meeting. The act can be viewed on the website for the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development at www.dced.state.pa.us
"Before any vote can take place, the Sunshine Act requires public agencies to offer an opportunity for meaningful public comment on proposed action. If the agency does not announce the name, job title and proposed salary during the public meeting before the vote, the public cannot give meaningful public comment before the vote takes place in accordance with the Sunshine Act, thus raising compliance issues. This is why schools and other public bodies typically announce the name of the employee, the position and the proposed salary at public meetings before they vote. After this information is announced, the public knows who is being hired, how much they are being paid, and for which job, and if the public has any objection or support to voice on the proposal, they can do so before the vote takes place. That's what should have happened at last night's meeting, but apparently didn't," Melewsky said.
The Right-to-Know Law is a separate law, which outlines steps the public can take to acquire public information. It's also available on the DCED website.
"As noted above, the Sunshine Act requires the names to be provided to the public before the vote, during the public meeting. You wouldn't have had any need to request the list via the Right-to-Know Law if the board had announced the names before the vote in accordance with the Sunshine Act," Melewsky said.
Of the 14 people the Pottsville Area School Board hired as "2013-2014 School Security," one of them was the son of a school board member, Zwiebel confirmed Thursday.
It's Stephen Krater, son of Scott D. Krater, board vice-president.
Krater did not vocally abstain from the voice vote at Wednesday's work session, according to the audio tape of the meeting recorded by The Republican-Herald.
"I abstained. I don't know what you have recorded. I know what I did. I'm not going by your recording. I abstain from voting when it has to do with a family member, absolutely," Krater said Thursday.
Krater said his abstention was recorded in writing and was submitted for the record.
Thornburg and Zwiebel refused to release the list to the media after the meeting Wednesday night.
"You're going to have to file a Right-To-Know request. We don't want the officers involved to think we're just handing out their names. This way, we'll have the request in writing and we'll tell them we have to comply with it," Thornburg said Wednesday night.
"In all fairness to the Pottsville police department, we didn't want them to pick up the paper tomorrow and see three-quarters of their names listed. That's the only reason," Zwiebel said Wednesday night.
On Thursday, Zwiebel gave another reason why the media wasn't given the list:
"The board members had everything on their iPads and for whatever reason when we printed off the hard copies for the media, the attachments didn't come through."
"As we were working through this we were originally concerned about giving out the names of the police officers but then we realized it's going to be public anyway. We had some real security concerns for them," Thornburg said Thursday.
Curran said Thursday the media shouldn't receive all of the agenda attachments, like the list of employees.
"Some of those attachments are working documents. They're drafts. Until the board adopts them, they're not officially a document to be released. It's a work paper. Depending on what the situation may be, we may change a part and not adopt it," Curran said.
On Thursday, The Republican-Herald submitted an RTK request to Thornburg and Curran, requesting the list of the part-time officers hired. At an interview at his office at 1940 W. Norwegian St., Pottsville, Thornburg released a hard copy.
There were 15 names on it, but one of them was placed there incorrectly, Curran said.
It was "Jessica Tofany," an independent contractor who works on an as-needed basis as a speech and language therapist, Curran said.
According to Curran and Zwiebel, the 14 police officers hired to work as part-time security officers at the district for salaries of $18 per hour and the communities they work in as police are as follows:
- John Borchick, Girardville
- Jon Bowman, Port Carbon
- Joseph Ferraro, Port Carbon
- Joseph Krammes, Pottsville
- Stephen Krater, Mahanoy City
- Joseph Murton Jr., Pottsville
- Mark O'Toole, Pottsville
- Richard Pugh, Pottsville
- Brian Reno, Pottsville
- Cindi Shpakovsky, Minersville
- Michael Stank, Pottsville
- Charles Webber, Pottsville
- Dennis Wiederhold, Pottsville
- Grant Yoder, Pottsville
Zwiebel estimated the part-time officers will start work in two weeks.