Sewickley council no longer plans to keep track of who voted, and how they voted, in its minutes unless a roll call vote is requested.

Councilman Larry Rice made the announcement at the July 13 meeting.

Rice is handling minute preparation in lieu of a borough manager.

He said he was told by borough solicitor Richard Tucker that noting how an individual councilperson voted was not required unless the action was taken via roll call.

Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, said that while such notation is technically legal under the Sunshine Act, it does not bode well from a public policy perspective.

Council members tend to vote by raising their hands, meaning unless someone is at the voting session that person will not be able to see how their representative voted unless it is noted.

“For them to say, ‘Well, because we can,’ is really not an answer,” Melewsky said. “The Sunshine Act doesn’t require them to say who raised their hand for ‘yay’ or who didn’t, but I think for practical purposes and as a matter of public policy they should. I think the solicitor is correct from a strictly legal perspective.

“(The Act) requires them to include in the minutes the substance of all official actions and the roll call votes, but not every vote is a roll call vote. … I think if an agency can provide that information as part of their minutes then they should. What they are essentially saying is we’re just going to do the bare minimum here. Why would they want to do that?”

Council president Jeff Neff said they would want to do that to help prevent division among the elected leaders.

“Most of the time, there’s a majority or a unanimous vote on council so we don’t (need to make such notes),” Neff said. “We don’t need to be divided any more than what the public wants to see us divided. When you start putting names out there and how they voted certain ways, when you put them out in a newspaper people are like, ‘Oh. Jeff Neff did that’ or ‘Cindy Mullens did this’ and it’s like why?

“These people (on council) are all volunteers. Now, Congress, state legislators, those guys get paid. That’s their job. Go ahead and call them out for what they do. I don’t want to call out volunteers for what they do. If somebody else tells you (how someone voted) I can’t help that, or if you’re here at a meeting you can see it. You can see who voted how.”

Years’ worth of council meeting minutes posted on the borough’s website list council attendance toward the top, and only numbers are listed by the motions passed without dissent or abstention.

However, if a motion passed with a dissent or abstention, then that council person was mentioned. Minutes reviewed did not indicate a roll call vote was called for.

“When I want the votes recorded, I’ll make sure I call for a roll call,” councilman Thomas Rostek said after the July 13 session.

The discussion about whether council votes should be individually noted came after council voted 5-3-1 to approve the minutes of a May 11 meeting in which former borough manager Marla Marcinko was fired.

Neff, vice president Todd Renner, Sean Figley, Ed Green and Rice voted in favor of approving the minutes. Mullins, Tom Rostek and Julie Barnes dissented. Newly appointed councilman Brian Bozzo abstained. Bozzo was appointed to council July 6 to fill the seat of Ward 1 resident Christine Allen.

The vote to fire Marcinko was 5-4-1 on May 11, after a closed-door discussion in an executive session.

Mayor George Shannon cast the deciding vote following a split on council, 4-4-1.

Neff, Renner, Figley and Green voted to fire Marcinko. Rostek, Mullins, Allen and Barnes dissented. Rice abstained. Allen resigned a few weeks after that meeting.

The manager firing was not listed on the agenda. Some residents have questioned whether council violated the Sunshine Act during that meeting. Council members have denied any wrongdoing.

Mullins said the May 11 minutes were previously 10 to 12 pages while the ones that were up for approval on July 13 were about five pages.

Neff said the average amount of pages used for meeting minutes is five.

Green said the original minutes were “written from the perspective of an unhappy employee” and information was “cherry-picked to tell a story.”

He did not elaborate further.

Council had tabled approving the May 11 minutes last month for further review.

“I don’t find anything inaccurate, but I don’t really think they reflect the true nature of how things went down,” Rosteck said. “I’d like council to consider publishing the recording (of that meeting).”

Rosteck said he wanted to see the recording published for the sake of “openness” and “so that everyone can judge for themselves what happened.”

A motion to publish the recording failed 4-5 with those in favor of the minutes opposing the recording posting and Bozzo voting to post.

“I would like to put it out there, too, because I would love for everybody to see exactly what happened that night,” Neff said, despite voting against its posting. “I don’t think it’s right because we don’t post every (meeting). I wouldn’t do it for sensationalization.”

Rostek said he would be up for posting previous meetings if it meant May 11 would be posted.

Council had multiple meetings via zoom and recorded them this and last year due to the pandemic.

Melewsky said a municipality is not required by law to post those recordings. However, it is a public record and people should have access to it under the Right to Know Law.

“From a public policy perspective, why wouldn’t they put that online?” Melewsky said. “Why wouldn’t they want their constituents to have access to this public record? It doesn’t make any sense. … If they want to make more work for themselves and make people file Right to Know Law requests, that will require the public as well as agency employees to expend time and resources. Seems like a waste to me. We’re talking about clearly public record here.”

The Sewickley Herald filed a Right to Know request to obtain the recording on July 15. Pennsylvania’s Right to Know Law states that the agency has five business days to respond to the request.

Barnes declined to talk specifically about minutes or meeting recordings, but said, “I believe transparency’s good in government.”

The May 11 minutes, as well as minutes from the June 8 special meeting and the July 6 meeting, all of which were approved July 13, were not posted to the borough website as of July 14.

Council approved a separation agreement with the former manager at the July 6 meeting shortly after appointing Bozzo. Her last day as a borough employee was May 28.

Council members said part of the settlement agreement was that they could not talk about the terms of the deal.

Council went into executive session for about an hour July 13.

Meeting attendees left council chambers as a result and did not return except for a member of the media.

Council did reconvene and unanimously passed a motion regarding compensation for an administrative assistant. Members declined to identify the assistant or the compensation amount.

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