Since 1957, Pennsylvania has codified a responsibility to make public meetings accessible to the people.
The state law also evolved, eventually becoming what is now known as the Sunshine Act.
The earlier Open Meetings Law required only the most basic transparency. If a vote was taken, the meeting had to be open. That was all.
That changed in 1987 with the sterilizing light of the Sunshine Act.
The new law created a framework that established open meetings as the default. Instead of limiting access only to the most action-oriented gatherings, government entities were given a narrow and specific list of circumstances in which doors could be closed.
Executive sessions could be held for defined purposes such as real estate negotiations, pending litigation or personnel discussions. But all votes and spending still had to occur in the public eye.
But the meetings themselves are only part of the legislation. Another key provision governs how the public is informed.
Meetings must be publicized. Regular meetings require advance notice of dates and times — sometimes through a single annual advertisement if a board meets on a fixed schedule, such as the first Monday of every month at 6 p.m. Special meetings, however, are treated differently, with the law dictating how and when notice must be given.
But a 2021 amendment changed that.
The tweak to the Sunshine Act created four exceptions to the public notice requirement, permitting agencies to add items to an agenda at a meeting rather than advertising them in advance.
There was resistance to the change almost immediately. In November, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed that the language could be read to allow a municipality to skirt notice requirements altogether — giving the public no notice at all.
Lawmakers listened and are working to change that, in an unusually bipartisan admission that the law needs to be fixed.
A proposed amendment would do for meeting advertising what the Sunshine Act did for open meetings — providing clear guiderails instead of open-ended discretion.
The proposal allows government bodies to act quickly when truly necessary, including situations involving risks to life or property, or minor, time-sensitive decisions.
These restrictions make sense because, in many cases, the decisions involved are ones a designated official could make anyway. A borough manager or appointed secretary already may have standing authority to act in a crisis.
Would it be preferable to have elected officials on the record for those decisions? Of course. But in a fire or flood, the public understands why a quorum is not being assembled before action is taken.
Where the public does not understand — and should not be asked to accept — is routine government business emerging without notice, explanation or warning. Sunshine laws exist not to slow government down but to ensure that when it moves, the public can see where it is going.
House Bill 2146 passed the Local Government Committee last week. The rest of the House should pass it and send it to the Senate. It is a fix that is both cognizant of common sense and protective of the public interest.
It also preserves a clear path forward grounded in 69 years of defense of the people’s right to know what is happening, when and where so they can show up and find out why.