TL;DR
- The current appeal on an RTK I sent to Mahoning Township will be settled on or before October 28 per the Office of Open Records
- The OOR has ordered Franklin Township to hand over the documents I requested by September 24th
- A third Right-to-Know request asking for the full audit logs from Flock's system is currently pending and due by September 24 for both Mahoning and Franklin Townships, who have both acknowledged the request and submitted extensions
- Weatherly Borough Police Department has less than a week left to respond to their RTK request
- Motion is being made in the Township as we have got people talking, appearing in the Times News and on BRC TV-13
Mahoning Township is, as far as I can tell, the top consumer of Flock Safety services in the county. They have had 6 Flock ALPRs stationed throughout their and Lehighton's land for the last three years, and I'm not sure how close any of that is to changing. As it stands, Franklin Township and Weatherly Borough are tied for second with a confirmed three cameras being owned by Franklin and at least three cameras existing in Weatherly Borough. Since July, I have been working to gather as much information I can on why we have these cameras in the first place and how we can get rid of them in our community. I have been garnering support and confronting our council members with these questions and informing them of the harm these cameras are doing. Here is where we stand so far.
Mahoning Township
On August 12th, I attended a Board of Supervisors meeting to discuss my situation. Two other individuals accompanied me and discussed their concerns with ALPRs, which was helpful as the majority of my segment was focused on communicating the Township's sub-par public records management. Specifically, I explained the two Right-to-Know requests I had sent to the Township at the time. I also explained the portion of the Township's budget that goes towards the cameras and requested that the Township both focus on their public records and reconsider their Flock contracts. Interestingly enough, at that very meeting, the Township introduced the very person who was going to help them solve their public records issues, in a way.
At the beginning of their meeting, they introduced a representative from Gross-McGinley, a municipal law firm. This law firm has been advising the Township and participating in the appeals as of a few days before the meeting. Since January, Nanovic Law Offices of Jim Thorpe was the Township's counsel and was seemingly let go only five months later in June. It's unclear why Nanovic was dropped so quickly but it does explain the reason Right-to-Know communication has been so poor, as my first request to the Township was filed in July while the Township had no counsel.
Typically, the Open Records Officer (in this case, the secretary) is the one to fulfill these requests, not a lawyer, but it makes perfect sense to consult counsel when it's unclear what you should or should not release. If the Township did not have anyone to consult, the lack of response and messy fulfillment makes sense. It's possible the secretary did not want to do the work, or they didn't know what they should or should not release and, therefore, kept the release of records on the lower end. This is speculation, of course, but the bottom line is that from now on the Township will hopefully be a little more cooperative with public records. That's a good thing.
Right now, I have one appeal open with the Office of Open Records and Mahoning Township. This appeal is for my second request which asks for the Lehighton license agreement, Flock master contract, and physical installation locations of the cameras. The Township initially completely denied this request. They stated releasing the documents would pose a security risk for the Township or its property (such as the cameras). This argument doesn't quite make sense.
If you know anything about the government, you understand the phrase "public servants." The Township is not an entity to make decisions for us; citizens make decisions through the Township. If the Township enters into a contract with another company, then the citizens, the ones paying for the contract, have every right to know what the terms of use are and why we are paying for those services. It does not make any sense for the Township to deny the release of any of these records. The physical locations are just a little cherry on top, too; there's no reason to hide the locations of something that are public-facing. I have personally walked up to every known camera in the Township. If it's that easy, why not give an official statement on where they are? It's like building a grocery store and then refusing to tell people it's there, even though they drive by it every day.
After securing legal counsel, the Township actually emailed me their unredacted license agreement with Lehighton Borough. They stated that, after further consideration, they would be sending me the document and informed the OOR of that decision as well. This is good, but the appeal is far from over; there are still two other documents in dispute.
Recently, the Office of Open Records instructed the Township to reach out to Flock Safety to see if they would act as a party in this appeal. This likely means that the OOR is trying to get information from Flock about whether the requested documents would realistically pose any security risk. It also means the original due date for the OOR's final determination won't cut it. As of now, I have granted the OOR two extensions on their final determination to give them time to make a decision to the best of their judgment. The FD is now due on or before October 28.
Franklin Township
I have submitted three public records requests to Franklin Township. For the second request I submitted, the Township responded with redacted information and did not cite the necessary exemptions for why they did so. This allowed me to appeal their response, and the way Franklin has handled this appeal has been most interesting.
I filed the appeal on August 5th (Dkt. 2026-3197) and, for almost the entire time the case was open with the Office of Open Records, the Township failed to produce a response. Strangely, though, right before the appeal was closed, Franklin Township did, for a lack of better words, something.
In the Office of Open Records Appeals Portal, the Township submitted a document one hour before the OOR issued their final determination. This document was the communications I had with the Township. It included my email and their acknowledgement, extension, and fulfillment. They then uploaded another document, a PDF which included all of the documents they sent me when fulfilling my request. These are all pretty standard, what you're expected to upload during the appeals process. What the presented next is the weird part.
As their last document, the Township uploaded a PDF containing my most recent RTK request. This request, regarding the Flock audit logs, had nothing to do with the RTK request I was appealing, along with their acknowledgements of that. There was no reason for them to make this submission. They didn't provide any commentary, either; no note, letter, position statement, or comment. The only thing they did was submit these documents, and the contributions didn't even matter. The OOR had made up their mind and submissions were technically closed, so the OOR almost immediately released their final determination and didn't acknowledge the uploads. The OOR granted my appeal and informed the Township that they have thirty days to send me the documents.
Despite the odd response from the Township, this is actually a good thing for me. If they eventually neglect to send me the documents at the demand of the OOR, it's easier for me to prove that the Township was aware of the appeal and simply didn't act on it. This almost definitely proves bad faith on the Township's end. Hopefully it never gets to the point of having to prove that, but it's nice to know it likely won't be too hard to win in a court of law.
Now, I wasn't allowed to speak at Franklin Township's Board meetings, so I never attended one. As far as I know, the Township didn't have issues with their counsel. I don't know who their counsel is and I don't know who, if anyone, they consulted throughout this process.
I do know that the OOR attempted to contact the Township via phone call, email, and US mail. The Final Determination implies they reached someone over the phone, but no response was submitted to the appeal from the Township. They also independently confirmed they had the correct email address as listed on the Township's website. This further argues bad faith on the side of Franklin Township, so expect an uphill battle when it comes to removing these cameras from their land.
Weatherly Borough
When I started this endeavor, Weatherly flew under my radar. As a small town resting on a North border of the county, I don't travel through there much and nobody usually has anything to say about them. When taking a look at the DeFlock Map, however, I have been noticing an increasing number of cameras being reported in the Borough. Right now that number sits at three, and I'm not sure exactly how many are left.
I sent a Right-to-Know request to the Borough directly on August 1st and, surprisingly, they directed me to the Police Department. Now, it's not surprising for the Police Department to fulfill these types of requests, especially when the request subject is police-operated equipment, but it's more surprising that a Borough such as Weatherly would organize two Open Records Officers. Not that it's a bad thing, though. So far, the Borough's responses have been respectful and compliant with the Right-to-Know law. The Police Department has until the 16th to fulfill my request, which is about a week away. This will, hopefully, get me an answer on how many cameras are in the Borough.
The Media
Fortunately, our movement is gaining some traction. As of now, we have been acknowledged by both the Times News and BRC TV-13. The Times News has written three articles outlining my position at the Lehighton meeting, my progress with public records as of August, and my argument from Mahoning Township's meeting. The movement was televised by BRC TV-13, too, using footage from the Lehighton meeting to communicate our key arguments. Another individual is included as well with a short speech regarding the safety of his family that hits pretty close to home. Blue Ridge did get the website wrong despite using it to acquire public records to use during its segment, though, but no hard feelings.
I also reached out to DeFlock itself, the organization responsible for the larger movement across the nation. They recently got in touch with me to discuss my participation, so I will be discussing my efforts with them as well.
The following months are looking hopeful to wrap up the biggest questions regarding public records. With Weatherly, Mahoning, and Franklin having to each respond to another RTK request, I'm looking forward to seeing what else we can find out. While I work on the back end, though, I encourage anyone interested to keep fighting! I'm unavailable to attend local meetings for the next few months, but if you are available I encourage you to attend meetings and speak out. Always remember that the people have power.