Editorial: Can John Pallone be a good open records officer?

A township manager is the person who is hired to steer the municipality’s work while the people elected to make the decisions are busy during the day.

Elected officials, especially at the level of many townships, often have their own full-time jobs. Also, the person elected to make the decisions might not be the best person to carry them out. A municipal manager can fill the same kind of role as a school district superintendent — the person with the expertise to run the business of the government and implement the actions directed by an elected body.

With that in mind, it might be unsurprising that Harrison Township has opted to make its new manager someone who understands exactly the demands of that role. John Pallone comes to the job with previous experience as New Kensington-Arnold’s school superintendent.

Some might wonder at the cross-pollination of expertise. Most superintendents get to that position after years in education. How would Pallone apply all that educational experience to running a township? That’s not something he will have to worry about.

Pallone was not a teacher or a principal. He was the first person in Pennsylvania to be hired after the state changed the law to allow someone with a law degree to run a school district. He held the position until 2020, when he announced at a board meeting barely a month before the new school year started that he was resigning, saying “circumstances have made it clear that this decision is timely.” He didn’t elaborate on what those timely circumstances were.

He also didn’t mention what was in his severance agreement. His brother, Robert, former school board president, abstained from the vote accepting his resignation and from the vote approving the severance. Other board members had not seen it when they voted for it unanimously.

Why is this something to think about? Because Pallone’s new $80,000 job is not only as township manager. He will also be the municipality’s open records officer, the person responsible for answering requests for information under the state’s Right to Know Law.

As a lawyer, Pallone should be doubly obligated to maintain the required transparency of that position. He needs to go into it with the understanding that the default is to release information, not build walls around it — and that includes information that pertains to him.

This is something Pallone should not need to have explained to him. The Right to Know Act that created open records officers was passed in February 2008, while Pallone was a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives — and he voted for it.