Tube City on Open Meetings

Jason at Tube City Online went me several steps better the other day, carrying on about secret dealings by local politicians (school directors chief among them) and their enablers -- us. From his December 17 entry:

Some bright --- make that "brave" --- state legislator needs to get some tougher public disclosure laws in place for all public elected bodies in Pennsylvania. Right now, the number of public records that are not available for the public to look at --- things as basic as police incident reports --- is stunning and sickening.

Or, say, the employment contracts of school superintendents.

News organizations have been agitating for tougher disclosure laws for years, but with their public credibility and respect hovering somewhere between "grave robbers" and "loan sharks," they're not exactly the best ones to be running the ball.

So writing angry letters to the editor, or going to board meetings to yell at the school directors, is just a lot of wasted energy. The newspapers know, and are powerless to do anything; the school board members know, and they don't care.

Instead, people in the Mon-Yough area, Mt. Lebanon or elsewhere who feel like they've been played for fools need to channel their anger into a lobbying effort, focused on their state senators and legislators, and directed at getting sweeping reforms of the state Public School Code (which hasn't been overhauled since 1949!) and the Open Meetings and Open Records laws. They're the only ones who have any power or motivation to change things.

Speaking of SableGate, copies of M. Sable's original employment agreement and her separation agreement are floating around the In-boxes of Mt. Lebanon, including mine. I'll post more after I've had time to look at them. But I'm not expecting to find anything interesting.