Dear Allegheny County Airport Authority:
Stop being so unseemly.
The public agency that runs Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) sought to block the media – that is, the public – from access to court hearings over its attempted dismissal of the company running PIT’s “airmall.”
The Airport Authority argued that information supposedly central to its move to cut ties with Fraport Pittsburgh involved “sensitive security information.”
It also sought to have a transcript of the court hearings – which began last Friday and resume later this month – to be sealed from public view. Its release could be “detrimental to transportation security,” the authority claimed.
Correctly, appropriately and thankfully, Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Christine Ward denied the Airport Authority’s efforts to hide public business from the public.
The Airport Authority’s “sensitive security” position is one that more than a few observers have called into serious question. And it raises an ancillary question:
What is the Airport Authority trying to hide?
And it hardly is an impertinent query given the authority’s past questionable performance.
This is the second time in as many months that a local government agency has attempted to hide what clearly is public information from the public.
You’ll recall how Pittsburgh City Council doesn’t want the public to have full access to inspection and maintenance reports germane to last January’s collapse of the Fern Hollow Bridge.
All too often, such behavior is employed to protect those engaged in it from the exposure of their nonfeasance and/or the embarrassment of their failures. Sometimes it is employed to cover for their own allegedly nefarious activities.
But whatever the reason, such behavior by public officials charged with overseeing public matters is wrong. And those who continue to engage it should be barred from public service or otherwise sanctioned for their disservice to the public weal.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
