News

February 12, 2008

Hazleton settles TL suit

Paper will get Illegal Immigration Relief Act defense fund names.

By Steve Mocarsky smocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer
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HAZLETON – City officials have agreed to turn over financial records The Times Leader requested more than 15 months ago as part of a settlement agreement that ends a lawsuit the newspaper filed against the city in 2006.

The newspaper in October 2006 requested to review receipts and expenditures to and from the city’s Illegal Immigration Relief Act Defense Fund – an account set up to accept public contributions to defray the cost of a lawsuit filed against the city by Relief Act opponents.

The city provided an account of expenditures and a list of the donation amount and hometown of each donor but refused to provide the names of the donors.

The newspaper notified the city it was violating the state Right to Know Law, but the city refused to budge from its position that the name of a donor was personal information exempt from the law and that releasing donors’ names could cause them harm.

The newspaper sued the city in Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas that December.

In the settlement reached Monday, the city agreed to provide the names, addresses and contribution amounts of all donors to the fund as well as the names and addresses of all recipients of any money paid from the fund.

The Times Leader agreed not to record or publish the Social Security, bank account, credit card or personal identification numbers of any donor or payee.

“We feel the public has the right to know the names of people who contributed to the … fund because the account is controlled by the city and municipal accounts are public,” said The Times Leader Managing Editor Joe Butkiewicz.

“We’re satisfied to finally see the names of contributors and the amounts they have given, even though it has taken 15 months to get what should have been provided promptly,” he said.

Attorney Ralph Kates, who represented The Times Leader, said he was pleased Hazleton “agrees with us that the citizens have a right to know who has contributed to this municipal fund and who is receiving payments from the fund.”

Kates said the “effort at resolution was initiated by the city.”

Kates said it appears the city realized “this was important information to share with the public. When they reached that conclusion, they were prepared to terminate the litigation without incurring further costs to the taxpayers.”

Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta said late last year that more than $400,000 had been contributed to the account.

Neither Barletta nor Joseph McHale – the attorney who represented the city’s insurance company in the case – returned calls seeking comment for this story.

Steve Mocarsky, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 459-2005.

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