Amazon reportedly has begun visiting 20 finalist cities, Pittsburgh included, vying to become the Seattle Internet retailing giant’s second headquarters.

Of course, nobody locally is talking about such things, having long ago invoked the Romulan-Klingon Cloaking Device (of “Star Trek” fame) in a warped-factor-six attempt to hide from the public what of their money elected and anointed officials are pledging to the very wealthy Amazon.

The state Office of Open Records ruled such information indeed is public information and ordered Amazon’s Pittsburgh courtesans to make it so.

But the Keepers of the Amazon Corporate Wealthfare Secret – “Shhhhhhhh! How dare you ask!” — have appealed the order to Allegheny Common Pleas Court, thus tying up public disclosure indefinitely. Using public money, by the way, to further prosecute their total eclipse of transparency makes the face-slap harder and wetter.

Oh, the sheer hubris of those who believe they can conduct the public’s business sans the public and charge them for it.

By the way, both the Tribune-Review and the Post-Gazette have continued to have sharp words for public servants who are hell-bent on dis-serving the public in the Amazon matter.

“Taking this fight to court is an affront to the public’s right to know,” the Trib editorialized on Sunday.

And the P-G went as far as to expose the untoward creation of what essentially is a private company – PGHQ2 — to do the government’s Amazon bidding:

“In effect,” government officials are “using it as a front to shield public documents from public view,” the P-G editorialized — after reminding that “PGHQ2 was elected by no one and has no standing to set conditions for the release of public records.”

Hear! Hear!

Less than an hour away, in neighboring West Virginia, a nine-day statewide teachers strike was settled Tuesday. Never mind that public school teachers in the Mountain State are barred from striking.

“There is no right to strike against the state,” wrote Roger Tompkins, then the state’s attorney general, 28 years ago this very week. The ruling came in 1990, the last time West Virginia teachers walked out.

“Thus,” continued Tompkins, on March 8, 1990, “any strike or concerted work stoppage by the public teachers of this state is illegal. … It is our opinion that any strike by public teachers is illegal and may be dealt with accordingly by school officials.”

A month later, the West Virginia Supreme Court ruled:

“Public employees have no right to strike in the absence of express legislation or, at the very least, appropriate statutory provisions for collective bargaining, mediation, and arbitration.”

Current West Virginia AG Patrick Morrisey reiterated last month that any such strike is unlawful.

But don’t look for “school officials” to deal with these lawbreakers “accordingly”; numerous county boards of education – including the board in Ohio County, W.Va., which abuts Washington County, Pa.  —  expressly supported the striking teachers.

Who, again, are school boards supposed to be working for?

Nose-thumbers of a feather thumb their noses together, it appears.

And it’s certainly not been much of an object lesson for West Virginia students. They’ve now been taught that the rule of law is a dead letter and they’ve been slapped not only by teachers but by their school boards, the very people supposed to be looking out for their best interests.

Talk about perverted public policy.

Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).

.