Lehighton board votes down RTK proposals

Two motions aimed at changing the way Lehighton Area School District handles its Right To Know requests narrowly failed during last week’s board meeting.

Director David Bradley put both items on the floor, first calling for the district’s RTK officer to process all information requests without review by an attorney unless a redaction is required, and the second calling for all items required to be released under the RTK law to be posted on the district’s website.

Both times, the motions failed to pass via a 5-4 vote with board members Larry Stern, Stephen Holland, Andrew Yenser, Rita Spinelli and Wayne Wentz voting no. Joining Bradley with affirmative votes were Richard Beltz, Gail Maholick and Joy Beers.

Bradley said too many RTK requests go to the solicitor, William Schwab, which costs money for his review.

“As a test, I asked people who sent RTK requests to multiple districts,” Bradley said, “and some were replied to instantly with no cost to district and others required a significant cost to the district. If we can circumvent using our solicitor to review all RTK requests and just give people the information, we could save some money.”

Superintendent Jonathan Cleaver said not every request is sent to Schwab and some that are do not result in bills.

“I am confident he doesn’t bill us when it’s a simple yes answer,” Cleaver said. “There are some things, like my contract, that don’t go to the attorney to be reviewed. But when someone constantly does RTK requests on an individual’s emails back to 2014, anything like that we would have the solicitor review for redactions. I’m not putting our careers on the line by accidentally sending out something we should not have. If Mr. Schwab says yes and we later face a lawsuit, he would have to defend his position on sending that out.”

Later, Bradley said he can respect that on some occasions a district may want to send something to the solicitor for review. He used the example of a request by a former board member, Stacey Duerst, to find out who filed certain other RTK requests.

“(Schwab) billed the district to review that with her,” Bradley said.

Business Manager Brian Feick said in past practice, Lehighton’s RTK officer has notified Schwab of any requests she isn’t comfortable responding to without his input.

“If we miss something, who is going to get sued?” board President Larry Stern asked. “It isn’t going to be David Bradley. It’s going to be this district, and we should not be assuming that liability.”

After the first motion was voted down, Bradley requested all items required to be released under the RTK law to be posted on the district’s website.

“That would save the lawyer’s time,” he said. “We would be able to enroll hundreds of people to act as our mini auditors and help us manage the district.”

Feick said the Allentown School District uses BoardDocs, the same program as Lehighton, to prepare its board packet for meetings.

“The difference is they pay an extra $9,600 a year to make public the attachments given to the board for their meetings,” Feick said. “We currently don’t do that.”

Bradley stuck to his motion to put all documents available under the RTK law on the website.

“There has to be a better way to do it than the district is currently doing it,” Bradley said.

Before voting the motion down, Yenser said he was doing so because “there are no parameters around this.”