web1_wildfires02.jpg

Trucksville Volunteer Fire & Rescue collect supplies for Tennessee fire victims

web1_TTL120216wvwc.hughes.jpg

WVWC honors Woman of the Year

<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; color: #000000; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif, 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;">WILKES-BARRE &#8212; Friday was, coincidentally, the one-year anniversary of attorney Kimberly Borland&#8217;s initial request to see plans for Wilkes-Barre Area School District&#8217;s proposed new high school, and he marked it by making his case before Luzerne County Judge Lisa Gelb.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; color: #000000; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif, 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;">For her part, Gelb put the request &#8212; denied by the district but supported by the state Office of Open Records, which led to the appeal before her bench &#8212; into a bit of historic context, citing the construction of public women&#8217;s showers at Meyer&#8217;s High School that no one ever used.</p><p>&#8220;Maybe if they had asked women about those shower designs they would have been told no woman was going to use them,&#8221; Gelb quipped during questioning of Borland and District Solicitor Ray Wendolowski.</p><p>The comment evoked chuckles in the sparsely attended hearing, but got to the nub of the case: Does the public have the right to see building design plans before they are finalized?</p><p>In December 2015, Borland submitted a Right-To-Know request to the district seeking &#8220;plans and specifications&#8221; for the renovated Mackin school building and the new high school to be built where Coughlin now stands.</p><p>The district denied the request on grounds the details could be used by someone to attack students or faculty. Borland appealed to the state Office of Open Records, which concluded the district offered no evidence &#8220;other than conclusory statements&#8221; supporting the claim of increased threat. The district appealed that ruling, leading to Friday&#8217;s hearing.</p><p>Wendolowski opened by pointing to a roll of papers several feet high and about six inches in diameter. They were the plans and specifications for Mackin that, he said, he would have to turn over to comply with the OOR order.</p><p>Stressing he was absolutely confident Borland would do nothing dangerous with such plans, he repeated the contention that if the district gave them to Borland they would have to be made available to anyone, and that terrorists could use such details to plant explosives to &#8220;take down a load-bearing wall&#8221; or fill the ventilation system with poison.</p><p>Wendolowski said the district&#8217;s evidence submitted to the OOR &#8212; affidavits from building designers and district security personnel testifying to the risk &#8212; were patterned after similar affidavits submitted by another school district in a similar case.</p><p>Noting the OOR ruled that those records <em>could</em> be withheld, Wendolowski said ordering Wilkes-Barre Area to release its plans and specifications is contradictory. &#8220;This is a mess,&#8221; he said, &#8220;some judiciary intervention is necessary.&#8221;</p><p>Borland countered that there is no evidence in any school nationwide that releasing plans and specifications of a building has ever resulted in harm to people or schools.</p><p>He repeated his contention that, by the district&#8217;s logic, publicizing bus routes and lunch menus would be equally dangerous, yet districts put that information online and in newspapers all the time.</p><p>Borland also argued there is no way of knowing what parts of his request could be dangerous if made public without anyone seeing the plans, and that the public has a right to see them before the school is built, so taxpayers can decide for themselves if the costly project is being done right.</p><p>&#8220;If you don&#8217;t affirm the order (by the OOR to release the plans), this will be done before the public sees anything,&#8221; Borland said. &#8220;They can redact specifications of a fire suppression system,&#8221; he added, not conceding that doing so would be legal, &#8220;but the public is entitled to know there <em>is</em> a fire suppression system.&#8221;</p><p>At that point Gelb mentioned the public Meyers showers, which lacked individual stalls, making them unappealing to the women who were supposed to use them.</p><p>Borland stressed he is good friends with Wendolowski, and that the argument was with his client.</p><p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t trust the school board,&#8221;he said, &#8220;I don&#8217;t think I <em>should</em> trust the school board.&#8221;</p><p>There is no time limit for Gelb to make a ruling in the case.</p><style>
.neFileBlock {
	margin-bottom: 20px;
}
.neFileBlock p {
	margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}
.neFileBlock .neFile {
	border-bottom: 1px dotted #aaa;
	padding-bottom: 5px;
	padding-top: 10px;
}
.neFileBlock .neCaption {
	font-size: 85%;
}
</style>
<div class='neFileBlock'>
<div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/web1_Borland-Kim.jpeg">
<div class="neCaption">Kim Borland</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/web1_Borland-Kim.jpeg</photo0><caption0>Kim Borland</caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/web1_Wendolowski-Ray.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Wilkes-Barre Area School District Assistant Solicitor Raymond Wendolowski.  BILL TARUTIS/FOR THE TIMES LEADER</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/web1_Wendolowski-Ray.jpg</photo1><caption1>Wilkes-Barre Area School District Assistant Solicitor Raymond Wendolowski.  BILL TARUTIS/FOR THE TIMES LEADER</caption1><photoCredit1></photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Request to see W-B Area high school plans goes to court