Thursday, January 24, 2008

Let the sunshine in....

No, it's not just a song, folks. Although a lot of officials sometimes seems to think that way.
The most recent instance has cropped up in Hatfield Township, where officials apparently got together to not only discuss but decide on who they were going to dump when it was time to reorganize in January, and who would be handed out plumb positions.
They maintain that nothing wrong was done; that everyone apparently had heard about their closed-door session, or sessions, so it wasn't like it was a secret.
Hello... do you see the problem here?
Pennsylvania is notorious for having a basically worthless Sunshine Act in place. And even if a board is found guilty of violating it -- and rarely does anyone bother to pursue the question -- they merely get a bit of a slap on the hand.
Does the public care enough to raise a ruckus?
Do the officials in the area care enough to stop the practice?
The only glimmer of hope I've seen recently involves the county commissioners finally opening up their agenda meetings.
Otherwise, making up your own rules seems to be just fine... how pathetic.

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