Borough of Etna Codes and Ordinances, Laws and Rules and Enforcement Procedures, including associated fines as allowable by law.
| Submitted | Dec. 3, 2016 |
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Communications
From: Helena J. Csorba
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to Pennsylvania Right to Know Act, I hereby request the following records:
Current and complete copy of Borough of Etna Codes and Ordinances, Laws and Rules and Enforcement Procedures, including associated fines as allowable by law.
The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.
In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 5 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Helena J. Csorba
From: Borough of Etna
A letter stating the requester must agree to or prepay assessed or estimated fees in order for the agency to continue processing the request.
From: Mary Ellen Ramage
Tom Whom It May Concern:
Attached is a copy the Right to Know Request you submitted on behalf of
Helena Csorba (two copies of the same request) which was received yesterday
(December 5, 2016) at 8:34 and 8:56 a.m. and the Borough's response to that
Right to Know requests, which, as the statue allows, includes a 30 working
day extension of time to fill the request and includes the cost of the
copies that will need to be made ($401.50 - twenty-five cents a page).
Please communicate the time extension and costs associated with this Right
to Know Request to Ms. Csorba.
Thank you,
Mary Ellen Ramage, Manager, Right to Know Officer
Manager, Borough of Etna
437 Butler Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15223
412-781-0569
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on Dec. 3, 2016. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Mary Ellen Ramage
It was sent several days ago - and did not come back undeliverable? Please
check and get back to me today. I requested a 30 business day extension
plus included the cost of copying - we are not capable of supplying
digitally
Mary Ellen Ramage, Manager
Manager, Borough of Etna
437 Butler Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15223
412-781-0569
-
~WRD000
From: Mary Ellen Ramage
Here is what was sent to you on Dec. 6. We received DEC. 5 NOT THE 3RD as
we are closed on weekends.
If you have any questions on what was sent, please contact me and will be
happy to assist. We have not begun copying the massive records yet as we
are awaiting direction and confirmation of acceptance of the costs
associated with copying the information.
Thank you!
Mary Ellen Ramage, Manager
Manager, Borough of Etna
437 Butler Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15223
412-781-0569
From: Helena J. Csorba
I am sending out a general request and appeal to the ACLU, to the Allegheny County District Attorney, to the Pennsylvania Attorney General, to the Pennsylvania Auditor General, to the DOJ and others, for assistance to create a digitally accessible copy of the current and complete copy of Borough of Etna Codes and Ordinances, Laws and Rules and Enforcement Procedures, including associated fines as allowable by law, to be available for all to view, including current residents and future residents who might be considering Borough of Etna to be their home.
It will be my mission to make these documents view-able and digitally available online, as any 'SUNSHINE LAW' would be proud of.
More than once now, unwarranted citations have been issued to Helena Csorba, and when it looked like Etna Borough would loose control and outside eyes would be viewing the documents, the gross and excessive fines were miraculously reduced, before even getting to a court room. As an example, a citation for snow and ice on the sidewalk, the citation was $600 plus costs. When asking Magistrate Dzvonick for a continuance, along with a FOIA request for the Ordinance and Code, the Magistrate’s Clerk reduced the fine to $100, on a phone message, before the hearing.
I suspect that an audit of the Borough of Etna collected fines and fees, will show a Ferguson, Missouri style funding of the Borough of Etna budget, with excessive and onerous fines, that border on harassment.
I will be in touch and communicate through MUCKROCK as to how this feat will be accomplished. The Borough of Etna Ordinances and Codes, Laws and Rules and Enforcement Procedures, including associated fines as allowable by law, will be available online for all to view, upon completion of this FOIA request.
From: Mary Ellen Ramage
Thank you for your email. The Borough has been working with a Code Company – and have secured a budget request for Codification of our ordinances. With the SEVERE budget with the flood of 2004 – and the loss of ALL of our records as we had seven feet of water in the office, affecting ALL records, we are just able to finance this endeavor. There are numerous records showing that this process has begun but will not be completed quickly. It is expensive and time consuming, but we have engaged a company to codify the ordinances, which will then we placed on our website as well.
We are sure you can understand the difficulty that took quite some time for our community to recover from – after all we had 400 homes flooded as well – 25% of the community and great losses ourselves.
Mary Ellen Ramage, Manager
Manager, Borough of Etna
437 Butler Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15223
412-781-0569
-
~WRD000
From: Helena J. Csorba
The attached document, in your last correspondence, is corrupt. If you can't open it; I can't.
Please send the document again, maybe in a different format.
There has been a lot of time in between the 2004 Etna flood and today, meaning 2016. It has been 12-years.
At least the readily available Borough of Etna Codes and Ordinances, Laws and Rules and Enforcement Procedures, including associated fines as allowable by law, can be posted online, for easy access, for all to view.
I will continue with my quest to have outside parties, as the ACLU, the Allegheny County District Attorney, the PA Attorney General, the PA Auditor General, the DOJ and others, for assistance to create a digitally accessible copy, for all to view.
I was 'belly laughed' at, when I asked Senator Jane Orie's office to assist me in obtaining a copy of the Borough of Etna Codes and Ordinances, Laws and Rules and Enforcement Procedures, including associated fines as allowable by law, saying that I could not afford them. I will locate the time and date and duration of that conversation with one of her legislative aids. I will also locate the legislative assistant’s name, with whom I spoke.
.....................
From: Mary Ellen Ramage
As the law required, I can and have offered to make them available in the format that we have. There has been a lot of time since Ivan – but you do not financially recover that kind of catastrophic loss quickly and community-wide priorities have to be considered. We realized in the summer that this issue needed further investigation and cost estimate. And as I stated the ordinance books were also damaged by water and many documents were unreadable and all had to be restored at a significant expense – which was covered by either flood insurance or FEMA, some such as maps and blueprints could not be duplicated at all. The Borough has over 1300 ordinances enacted since its incorporation. They would all need hand scanned in full and in the same format. As I stated, we are currently working with a company for a two year – cost proposal – as we are in the range of $15,000 to $16,000.00 to codify all of them and provide them digitally. We have some on our website now – which I have directed you to. And as also stated in the law, we can make them available for viewing which may be the better way since I doubt that many of those 1300 are ones that you are particularly interested in. You would then be able to request only those that are your interest. I believe ordinance 1208 which outlines the fines, which is a maximum of $600.00 – which is why that total is listed on all those type of violations. It is a maximum amount – not the only amount and is quite often reduced by the magistrate at the time of the hearing.
I am not sure what you are referring to about “belly laughed” but honestly, we would be happy to either copy them ALL for you or have you view all and request copies of those you actually are interested in.
We agree they should all be online – hence the quote I have requested and have been working with a company for the past several months on. One of my office staff- just spent 2 months photocopying them from 1990 on – for that company.
Is there a fax number that I can provide the police incident reports to you at? I can check with our Police Department if they are able to provide those in a different format in the meantime. I should assume (?), that you were not able to open the other police incident reports I sent last week in regards to your other Right to Know Requests? I could also make copies and mail them, at the twenty-five cents a page copy fee. There are only a few pages to each. If you would like that, I can count the pages of both RTK responses and send you the cost via email.
Please let me know and thank you.
Mary Ellen Ramage, Manager
Manager, Borough of Etna
437 Butler Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15223
412-781-0569
-
~WRD113
From: Helena J. Csorba
Please respect the integrity of each FOIA request as an isolated matter, to be treated with individual responses.
Legally, each FOIA request, is a request unto itself and should be responded to as such and should be kept separate. They are not a 'Shake'n Bake' and should not be treated as such.
The Borough of Etna Codes and Ordinances, Laws and Rules and Enforcement Procedures, including associated fines as allowable by law, modified and passed since the water damage of the Etna Flood, during the past 12-years, should have been posted online on the Borough of Etna homepage website, on an ongoing basis, as they were composed and passed.
As it stands, I do not see any of the past 12-year's Codes and Ordinances, Laws and Rules and Enforcement Procedures, including associated fines as allowable by law, published on the Borough of Etna homepage website.
I would suggest and make a request that there be a moratorium on passing any Laws, Ordinances and Codes and Enforcement Procedures, unless they can be posted and viewed readily online on the Borough of Etna homepage / website.
From: Helena J. Csorba
Attached ~WRD000 and ~WRD113 are corrupt documents and do not result in any intelligible pages. I will forward these documents and accompanying FOIA to a wider audience; maybe someone else can open the attachment. In the meantime, please resend it in a different format in a communication through MUCKROCK.
Please comply with the FOIA requests only through this medium; that is MUCKROCK.
Do not to contact the FOIA requester directly.
The Borough of Etna needs a good dose of SUNSHINE on their personnel and their personnel's bullying behavior and into the Borough of Etna operations and governance.
All correspondence will be made public and will be public, and will be published online for anyone and everyone to see.
..........................
From: Mary Ellen Ramage
The Borough of Etna has provided a response to this request – including the time extension and has also offered to provide viewing of these documents.
Please provide payment in advance for the Borough providing these documents in the medium that they exist now, as the law allows.
Both an email reply was provided to this request, and a letter was sent with the same information to MuckRock in Somerville, MA.
Mary Ellen Ramage, Manager
Manager, Borough of Etna
437 Butler Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15223
412-781-0569
-
~WRD000
From: Mary Ellen Ramage
As a third response today to the three emails regarding the information below and the two previous Right to Know Requests, they will be hard mailed to MuckRock, Somerville MA. Your Subject, refers to a different Right to Know Request, which WAS mailed to Muckrock in Somerville MA on December 6, 2016. You have previously reported the two Right to Know Requests for Police Incident Reports as being the documents corrupted.
Thank you
Mary Ellen Ramage, Manager
Manager, Borough of Etna
437 Butler Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15223
412-781-0569
-
~WRD000
From: Borough of Etna
A letter stating the requester must agree to or prepay assessed or estimated fees in order for the agency to continue processing the request.
From: Helena J. Csorba
The attachment ~WRD000 is a corrupt document and does not result in any intelligible pages.
Please resend it in a readable or different format.
From: Mary Ellen Ramage
Thank you. We can only provide in that format so it has been mailed to Muckrock at the address provided on the request.
We emailed it twice as an attachment. I am sorry that you are unable to open. It is police reports and is only in that format in our computer system and we are unable to convert to any other format.
Thank you.
Mary Ellen Ramage, Manager
Manager, Borough of Etna
437 Butler Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15223
412-781-0569
-
~WRD000
From: Helena J. Csorba
Thank you for your response.
Whereas, one of the two websites provided in the response opens to reveal some Codes and Ordinances, the second website below, opens as:
- This page can’t be displayed
AND
- Make sure the web address is correct.
http://www.legis.state.pa/us/cfdocs/legis/l./ucons.Check.cfm?yr=2012&sessind=0Act.43
Please verify that this address is correct.
.............
From: Mary Ellen Ramage
http://boroughs.org/subpage.php?link=borough%20code
here is a link that will take you go your request.
Mary Ellen Ramage,
Secretary-Manager
Right to Know Office
Borough of Etna
437 Butler Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15223
From: Mary Ellen Ramage
You have just been sent an email with a new link
It was updated for 2017.
Thank you
Mary Ellen Ramage, Manager
Manager, Borough of Etna
437 Butler Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15223
412-781-0569
-
~WRD000
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on Dec. 3, 2016. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Mary Ellen Ramage
This was sent to you already - the correct link. Third request
Mary Ellen Ramage, Manager
Manager, Borough of Etna
437 Butler Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15223
412-781-0569
meramage@etnaborough.org
From: Helena J. Csorba
– It is suspect, that initially there was a payment demand of over $400, as requested in “…. please submit a payment estimated at $401.50 ….” for the current and complete copy of the Borough of Etna Codes and Ordinances, Laws and Rules and Enforcement Procedures, including associated fines as allowable by law.
– The demand for money for the documents was persistent, as in a later post, “A letter stating the requester must agree to or prepay assessed or estimated fees in order for the agency to continue processing the request.”
- Then there was a response from the Borough of Etna, Freedom of Information Officer, to the FOIA request, resulted in an invalid website, as in http://www.legis.state.pa/us/cfdocs/legis/l./ucons.Check.cfm?yr=2012&sessind=0Act.43
– One of the last responses to my Freedom of Information request for the Borough of Etna Codes and Ordinances, Laws and Rules and Enforcement Procedures, including associated fines as allowable by law, states that the requested documents can be found at http://boroughs.org/subpage.php?link=borough%20code and is purported by the Borough of Etna, Freedom of Information Officer, is 'updated for 2017'.
– But the website states: " **The NEW Borough Code became effective June 17, 2014.
Act 37 of 2014/Title 8 of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes
Click here to read a summary of changes.
The “new Borough Code” is the result of many years of input from borough officials, committee members reviewing each section, assistance from the Local Government Commission, and assessment by the General Assembly.
The new Borough Code (Act 37 of 2014) is available online below. You can search these documents by hitting "Control" and "F" on your keyboard and entering a search word.
Click here to download the entire Borough Code in a Word document.
Click here to download the entire Borough Code in a PDF format.
Click here to access the Borough Code in HTML.
Click here to read the Executive Summary of HB 1719.
For more information you can also visit the PA Local Government Commission website.
For more information on Borough Code changes, contact Shelley Houk, PSAB Director of Research, at 800-232-7722, Ext. 1018 or by email at shouk@boroughs.org.
Purchasing Additional Paper Copies
The Local Government Commission has mailed four copies of the Borough Code, Title 8 of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes (Boroughs and Incorporated Towns), to each borough office.
If your borough needs additional copies, the PA State Bookstore has copies of the new Borough Code for sale on its website. Copies are $12 each, plus $2.50 shipping for each book. Click here to purchase additional copies.”
- I have not been able to find any notes of 'updated for 2017'.
- I am wondering if there is a more current website that contains the updates, to date, as the Freedom of Information Officer indicates exists, in the most recent communication?
– I, the requester, was not the one who marked this request as ‘completed’. As far as I am concerned, this request is not complete until I figure out if I have to mobilize agencies, to make copies of ALL of the Borough of Etna Codes and Ordinances, Laws and Rules and Enforcement Procedures, including associated fines as allowable by law, in their entirety and available on the Borough of Etna’s official website, for all to review and for all to view.
- Is there a third website that the Borough of Etna, Freedom of Information Officer, might want to offer that has the 'updates to 2017', for ALL Borough of Etna Codes and Ordinances, Laws and Rules and Enforcement Procedures, including associated fines as allowable by law?
– I am taking the demand of over $400 for these documents, as an attempt at extortion, a 'shake-down', as it appears, these documents have been available all along. The Borough of Etna, Freedom of Information Officer was just playing a game and has been reticent in releasing the information to the general public, without demanding money.
………………..
From: MuckRock.com
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on Dec. 3, 2016. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Helena J. Csorba
Attention Borough of Etna Freedom of Information Officer:
I am going to mark this Freedom of Information request as 'COMPLETED' because even though the Freedom of Information Officer has been informed that I will have a scanning crew go to the Etna borough building and scan the Codes and Ordinances, Laws and Rules and Enforcement Procedures, including associated fines as allowable by law, in their entirety and put them on-line, for all to review and for all to view; Mary Ellen Ramage is holding the other Freedom of Information requests' responses 'hostage' for this big 'pay-day' of $401.50, a reward, that I am sure she has charged multiple times before, for these documents.
Each Freedom of Information request is a legal document and a request unto its own and should be treated as such and responded to as such. Mary Ellen Ramage is just playing a ‘delaying game’.
Mary Ellen Ramage, the borough manager, has been found out to be charging excessive and illegal fines, that are not within the Borough of Etna's Authority. Publishing the Borough of Etna Codes and Ordinances and the Authority under which they operate, would reveal that.
I think a thorough audit is in order, as I do not believe, I am the only one that is feeling the financial sting of repeated $1000 citation fines.
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