Laurels & lances: Violations & videos

Laurel: To disciplinary action. On Wednesday, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board made 16 people face the consequences of their own actions.

The board regularly places individuals who have violated casino regulations on its involuntary exclusion list. There are separate lists that prevent people from gambling at Pennsylvania casinos, visiting online betting sites or using video gaming terminals.

The one incident at Rivers Casino Pittsburgh is exactly the kind of “Ocean’s 11” type scheme one might expect to merit a ban. Three people employed by the casino at the time were involved in an operation that resulted in about $10,000 in fraudulent winnings.

But among the others were incidents that placed small children at grave risk. One man was so desperate to place an online sports bet that he left his 3-year-old in a vehicle parked at Rivers Philadelphia Casino.

Another man and a woman went into Bucks County’s Parx Casino to play table games for almost an hour. A 5-year-old child was left in a car outside. It was 19 degrees outside.

This grossly neglectful behavior is prohibited, which is why the perpetrators can no longer gamble in Pennsylvania venues. It is a sad commentary that anyone would consider leaving a toddler alone in a car to play a game or bet on one.

Lance: To a vanishing act. Norwin School Board meetings have been livestreamed for several years. The video recordings of the meetings have been available on the district’s YouTube channel.

Some of them still are — but not all of them. As of Thursday, there were just 10 school board meetings on the channel, the oldest being the Jan. 20 board meeting.

It isn’t that all older videos were scrubbed. There is a five year old message from the senior class president, recordings of the graduations from 2021 through 2023, opening day in fall 2022, Christmas concerts and a video of custodians working during the pandemic.

It is great that those older videos are maintained. So why not the November 2024 school board meeting? Why not a record of the votes that happened in May 2023? Why did the board’s digital record only appear to start six months ago?

Superintendent Natalie McCracken said she doesn’t know who made the decision. That’s alarming, especially as board member Shawna Ilagan said she is not aware of a vote on the subject.

“I know it was discussed, and the board policy last spring said that notations and any audio or video recordings are not the official record, which is identified as the minutes,” McCracken said.

The argument from the superintendent and solicitor is that there is no requirement to keep the videos up. That seems to be open to interpretation of state law and district record retention policy.

But what is the benefit to taking the videos down? Districts and other government agencies often complain about the extra burden that Right-to-Know Law requests can place on employees. Videos freely available on YouTube have no such burden. In fact, taking them down is more work.

It’s an all-around bad decision, giving the district the appearance of impropriety for doing something that didn’t need to be done, even if it isn’t a violation.