Aug 28, 2008 3 min read

The latest pinheaded move by a majority of Connellsville City Council shows a complete lack of understanding of and blatant disregard for the state Sunshine Act. How else can you explain council’s failure to vote at a public meeting on the firing of Rita Bornstein as city health officer? A day earlier, council conducted an unadvertised public hearing for Bornstein, meeting behind closed doors to deliberate and ultimately terminate Bornstein. At its regularly scheduled meeting the next day, council refused to take official action, apparently believing the matter had been sufficiently swept under the carpet.

There are Third World countries that do better when it comes to doing the people’s business in an open and transparent manner. It’s apparently lost on the majority of council – councilman Brad Geyer appears to be an exception – that you’re not allowed to take official action outside of a public meeting.

A case can be made for deliberating Bornstein’s fate, but the proper place for that would have been during an executive session at the regularly scheduled meeting. Followed by a vote, in public view, on whether she should be fired.

Instead, council choose to ignore that basic requirement of Pennsylvania law. This unique read reportedly came from attorney John Toohey, who represented council at the aforementioned unadvertised public hearing. Toohey, we’re told by Geyer, said “the action was binding and there was no need for us to rehash it.”

It’s worth mentioning that Toohey is wrong, according to media law counsel Melissa B. Melewsky of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association and anyone else with even a rudimentary understanding of Pennsylvania’s Sunshine Law. Before he decides to dole out legal advice on such matters, perhaps Toohey should make sure he knows more about the subject.

And council should explain to us how Toohey was picked for this job in the first place, since council never took a vote to hire him. It did, however, vote 4-1 to pay him $500, at the same formal meeting where Bornstein’s firing was treated as something that never happened.

Now that council has decided it doesn’t need to formally vote to fire someone, what’s next? Are they going to hire people that way as well? Maybe dish out a contract or two without a vote? We’d like to know what city solicitor Thomas Bowlen, who recused himself from the matter because of a professional relationship with Bornstein’s family, thinks of Toohey’s “legal advice” and council’s willingness to follow suit.

The state Ethics Commission had found Bornstein guilty of not filing a statement of financial interests, of working for other communities while being paid by the city(which she denies) and of using the city’s computer, telephone and fax machine for other work.

Council is well within its rights to discipline her for those transgressions as it sees fit, including termination. But not even an Ethics Commission ruling absolves council of the need to follow the law when it comes down to doling out that punishment. Forget about bringing open, democratic rule to Iraq; someone please bring it to Connellsville.