Wayne Boring didn't think it was an unusual request. He just wanted to see the records of what happened to several thousand dollars in his escrow account. So, in April, he sent a polite letter to the Indiana County prothonotary.

    Boring, a 60-year-old former boilermaker and vo-tech teacher from Seward, Pa., now retired on disability, asked that if the county "cannot provide the requested information, could you please state your reasons for same."

    But, the prothonotary couldn't provide the documents Boring requested, nor could she provide reasons. "The Court [of Common Pleas] has ordered information not to be released to Mr. Boring, without its approval," says prothonotary Linda Moore Mack, who routinely goes out of her way to help local residents obtain public records. She forwarded Boring's request to President Judge William Martin of the Court of Common Pleas. Six days later, Judge Martin issued a terse two line denial.

    Within a week, Boring filed a second letter, requesting documents under the state's Right-to-Know Law, and said he was willing to pay for the copies. The Court later claimed the documents Boring wanted to see were a "court account," not his personal escrow account, that he was "not entitled to see them," and that the previous "order will stand."

    At the time Boring requested the information, he had lost, by court action, $21,645 from his escrow account.

    The story begins in 1972 when workers from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) went onto Boring's 80-acre property in East Whitfield Twp., Indiana County, to solve a drainage problem created in the construction of State Route 56. Michael J. Creighton, assistant Counsel-in-Charge for PennDOT, says the department "went beyond the scope of the project and caused damage" to Boring's property. The state, exercising the right of eminent domain, later condemned 2-1/2 acres of the property and the 1,975 square foot two-story house built a little more than a decade earlier. But, then the state and the court system apparently lost track of the condemnation for more than a decade. Boring and his wife, Patricia, continued to live on the property, although under injunction not to interfere with state work. "I never knew what I could or couldn't do on the property," Boring says. Then the state came back about 1990.

    A strong-willed man, with little trust of government, Boring began a decade of legal maneuvering, hiring, firing, or being dropped by five attorneys. In April 1993, following a consent order agreed to by Boring, PennDOT put $120,000 into an interest- bearing account in Indiana County. However, Boring claims the state failed to deliver on several of its promises and also should pay delayed damages because he and his wife were unable to use the non-condemned acreage. In 1993, the Borings tried to get the courts to throw out the consent order, beginning another series of legal maneuverings, many filed by Boring without attorneys. The Court of Common Pleas in December 1990 had agreed about the delayed damages; the current judge disagrees.

    PennDOT's Creighton says the agency was not only "pushed to our limits" by Boring, but that he harassed the agency "by various lawsuits," and "utilized the legal process to delay settlement."

    So, PennDOT did what it never did before in a condemnation case--it filed for reimbursement of $21,645--111 hours of legal services at $195 per hour--to be taken out of about $30,000 remaining in Boring's escrow account; Boring had received about $90,000 in 1994. Creighton says the suit to recover attorney fees and costs was because of the "vexatious and frivolous" claims Boring kept filing. In 1998, the Commonwealth Court agreed with a ruling of the lower Court of Common Pleas that "nothing in the record established that the 1993 consent order was the result of fraud, accident or mistake," and remanded the case to the lower court to affix penalty. By court order, a check for $21,645 was issued by the prothonotary to PennDOT on Nov. 5, 1999.

    A subsequent appeal by Boring to the Commonwealth Court reduced that amount in February to $7,215. The state's Supreme Court has refused to hear Boring's further appeals. The $14,430, plus interest, has not yet been returned to the escrow account.

    And so now, in April, Boring wanted to see a copy of the original check, and the court decided he had no right to see that check. A couple of days after a newspaper columnist made inquiries, prothonotary Linda Moore Mack went back to the Court. The court finally allowed her to make a photocopy of the check and send it to Boring.

    The Indiana County prothonotary's office has a history of helping citizens look at public records. But, other agencies don't. Across the state, even in the same county, are likely to be agencies and local governments that efficiently handle citizen requests for public documents, and those which provide significant barriers. Pursuing the right to see public records can often lead to months of delays and legal bills of thousands of dollars, none of it reimbursable. Essentially, any government wishing to keep public records secret has almost unlimited power to delay and deny.

    It shouldn't take this much effort for any citizen to see public records. It shouldn't matter if a citizen wants to see those records for good reasons, bad reasons, or no reasons at all. But, the state's 1955 Right-to-Know law is one of the nation's weakest, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Sen. Stewart Greenleaf (R-Montgomery), working with Common Cause, the Society of Professional Journalists, and the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, has proposed stronger legislation. The legislation, which significantly broadens the definition of what's a public record, includes clauses to provide significant penalties for failure to provide public records, and to establish a state agency, similar to ones in other states, to help expedite right-to-know requests and mediate conflicts between citizens and the myriad Commonwealth governments. However, numerous special interest groups, as well as Gov. Tom Ridge, are fighting to dilute the proposed legislation.

    Meanwhile, Wayne and Patricia Boring and 12.3 million other Pennsylvanians are routinely denied the right to inspect public records because of a weak state law that has minimal enforcement.

Copyright 2001 Walter M. Brasch