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A tiny hamlet bans mining
A proposed local ordinance that would ban all mining from Blaine Township has historical precedent. Unfortunately, it is the New England hamlets that in the 1960s voted to outlaw nuclear war within their boundaries. Their hearts were in the right place, but had the missiles come, they would not have been persuaded by the town meeting resolutions to dump themselves into the sea.
And in Blaine (pop. 597), companies that own rights to underground coal will proceed to extract it if they please. Actually, according to the Pennsylvania Coal Association, a few other municipalities have attempted similar restrictions but have lost in court.
We have expressed strong reservations about the surface damage caused by longwall mining, especially to water supplies. But if restrictions are to come, they will require action in Harrisburg. Small townships are not empowered to overrule state mining regulations, regardless of what is at stake.
Attempting to report on the Blaine ordinance, our reporter encountered something that we thought state law had eliminated once and for all. The township secretary charged a $10 fee for a half-hour of her time to retrieve and copy the ordinance.
The Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Act allows agencies to adopt "reasonable rules" governing copies of public documents but can't charge fees for employees' time. The taxpayers are already paying them to be there, and providing records to the public is part of their jobs.
It's not that the newspaper can't afford $10, and Blaine's fee is admittedly far below some of the truly unreasonable charges we have seen elsewhere in the past. But the law exists to protect ordinary citizens, for whom $10 might be a hardship -- or worse, might dissuade them from trying to see public documents. The true point is that the citizens are the owners of the records, and the caretakers of the records are their employees. |