The following is a list of historic Office of Open Records (OOR) Appeals filed by a Requestor versus the Borough of Bath. The list begins in chronological order of most recent to oldest filing.

The Right-to-Know Law (RTKL), Act 3 of 2008 contains Section 1308, which states the following agency prohibition:

“A policy or regulation adopted under this act may not include any of the following: 1) a limitation on the number of records which may be requested or made available for inspection or duplication. 2) a requirement to disclose the purpose or motive in requesting access to records.”

Agencies such as the Borough, covered under the RTKL, have no choice in the number of records that may require retrieval and/or duplication (unless otherwise exempt or not authorized under the Act). Nor can the agency manage the request based on the Requestor’s intended purpose for using the documentation. Because of this, and the fact that the RTKL is absent any protections against vexatious requestors, (requestors that repetitively seek voluminous records lacking specificity and/or appeal decisions of the agency for record(s) they are not otherwise entitled) the result leads to months of conflict between an Agency and Requestor. When these conflicts arise, it is costly to an agency. In Bath’s case, the taxpayers bear the financial burden NOT the Requestor(s). In particular, extensive costs related to legal review and response is required when defending an agency’s initial position to deny records, throughout the entire appeals process. These are some of the amendments to the RTKL the public consented too when the act was amended in 2008.

In Bath’s history, 10 OOR appeals have been docketed. Nine of the last 10 OOR appeals occurred from the end of 2022 through 2025. During this same time period, one Requestor (Michael Long of Bath) accounts for 90% of all OOR appeals docketed involving Bath.