The Bradford Era will be waiting a little longer to see whether
the Pennsylvania State Police will turn over alleged e-mails
setting quotas for arrests.

The Era made a Right To Know request on May 25, asking for
alleged e-mails sent from the Punxsutawney Troop C headquarters to
area police barracks. The e-mails allegedly contain quotas for the
number of arrests for driving under the influence of alcohol, the
number of warning notices to be written, the number of seat belt
violators to be ticketed and the number of people to be stopped for
speeding.

Quotas are illegal in Pennsylvania since a 1981 law banning the
practice of directly or indirectly suggesting an individual police
officer should issue a certain number of traffic citations.

The state’s Right to Know law sets a five-day time period for
response from an agency.

The state police Bureau of Records and Identification Right to
Know office responded on June 1 — the fifth business day following
The Era’s request — saying more time was necessary to evaluate the
request. “The extent or nature of the request precludes a response
within the required time period,” was the first reason cited for
needing further information. The second was “Your request is under
legal review, which is necessary to determine whether a requested
record is a ‘public record’ for the purposes of the RTKL (Right to
Know Law).”

The letter does not confirm or deny the existence of the
e-mails.

The state police will need until July 1 in which to respond as
to whether the request will be approved or denied, reads a letter
sent to The Era.

On Monday, the day The Era received the response from the state
police, state Rep. Martin Causer, R-Turtlepoint, said he believed
the information requested should be open for public inspection.

“I think if there is a record like that, it should be public,”
Causer said. “My own opinion is that it should be public
record.”

A call to the state’s Open Records office seeking an opinion as
to whether the e-mails were public information was not immediately
returned.

Under the current version of the state Open Records law, all
records are presumed open unless specifically closed by the act or
by statute. There are 30 specific exceptions delineated in the law,
including criminal investigative records, 911 records and
non-criminal investigative records.

Another specific exemption is “a record maintained by an agency
in connection with … law enforcement or other public safety
activity that if disclosed would be reasonably likely to jeopardize
or threaten public safety or preparedness or public protection
activity.”

There is no specific mention of e-mails such as these in the
exceptions to the law.

The burden of proof for showing that the record should be closed
lies with the agency that holds the record, the law reads.