Post-Gazette seeks to open property reassessment meetings
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Status conferences open to the public on the progress of Allegheny County's $11 million reassessment are followed many times by closed sessions in the chambers of the judge overseeing the project.
A lawyer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Thursday argued that those conferences also should be open to the news media and citizens.
Senior Common Pleas Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr. asked attorney Frederick Frank to prepare a brief to support his request that those sessions be public.
Mr. Frank, a lawyer with the firm of Frank, Gale, Bails, Murcko and Pocrass, said that the periodic meetings in Judge Wettick's conference room and elsewhere in his office represented a continuation of judicial proceedings that both Common Law and U.S. Constitution agreed should be open.
Judge Wettick has been meeting with people involved in the reassessment project to handle a variety of tasks. They have been advising him on court orders for completing the project and drafting timetables for appeals of the new property values and schedules for sending out tax bills.
Under questioning from Judge Wettick, Mr. Frank made a plea for broad access to out-of-the-courtroom deliberations and meetings involving jurists, lawyers and elected officials. Even conference calls involving the judge would be covered by his request for access, Mr. Frank said.
While times and locations normally are announced for formal court hearings, Judge Wettick said that some of his sessions were organized at the last minute. He asked if those meetings should be delayed until a reporter was present.
Mr. Frank said the Post-Gazette was not asking to hold up proceedings but for the right to be informed of the meetings and the right to attend. Thursday's status conference, for example, would begin at the announced time whether or not a reporter was there to represent the public, Mr. Frank said.
Judge Wettick said tradition offered a more limited definition of a judicial proceeding as one where there was testimony under oath or where a court reporter was taking notes for a transcript.
Mr. Frank said he could submit written arguments by Tuesday.
Judge Wettick said the lawyer faced a tough challenge. "I think you are climbing up a hill," he said.
First Published February 3, 2012 12:00 am
