Fighting Right to Know case has cost Upper Pottsgrove taxpayers $21K

UPPER POTTSGROVE — When the township took legal action in January to prevent activist Matt Murray from filing additional Right to Know requests, it complained that complying with those requests “have diverted substantial staff time, legal resources, and external consultant services, leading to more than $55,000 in legal expenses over the past two years.”

On Friday, Commissioner Don Read said the latest figures put the legal costs for responding to Murray’s Right to Know requests at $66,289  since Oct. 22.

But those are not the only legal costs taxpayers are shouldering in this dispute.

According to the bills from the township solicitor’s office provided as the result of a Right to Know request from The Mercury, since December, of 2024, taxpayers are additionally on the hook for another $21,667.24 in legal fees for bringing this case against Murray.

So township taxpayers are paying for the solicitors’ time to deal with Murray’s numerous Right to Know requests, and they are paying for the lawyers’ time to try to stop his requests.

The largest portion of the billing from the firm of Dischell, Bartle and Dooley for trying to stop those requests came in January, when the solicitor’s office accumulated $10,251.24 in fees and court costs to the township, according to the bills.

That was the same month the request for a preliminary and final injunction to prevent Murray from filing any more requests was filed, and rejected by a judge the same day it was argued in a hearing.

It was also the same month Township Solicitor Eric Frey billed taxpayers $625 in “travel expenses” for making his way to the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown for that hearing. The billing came in the form of two-and-a-half hours billed for Frey’s time at his regular rate of $250 an hour, not a rate-per-mile.

The law office of Dischell, Bartle and Dooley in North Wales is only 10 miles from the courthouse, a 24-minute drive according to Google Maps. Even charging for a round trip should only have consumed 48 minutes of his time.

If, on the other hand, he made his way to the courthouse from the township offices on Farmington Avenue, Google Maps puts that trip at 29 miles and, at most 41 minutes, depending on the route. A round trip would thus take about 82 minutes, not the 150 minutes that comprise two-and-a-half hours. The bill provided by the township does not make clear where the extra 68 minutes comes in, or the extra $341.12 it cost taxpayers.

In March, after that first ruling, the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union joined the case on Murrary’s behalf  and warned the township it would likely lose.

On June 2, that’s what happened when Montgomery County Judge Jeffrey Saltz dismissed the township’s request for the injunction against Murray.

Upper Pottsgrove resident Matt Murray, left, and Nathaniel Guest stand at the Smola Farm property they sued to keep as preserved open space. (Submitted Photo)

Subsequently, the township posted an unsigned response on the township website which read, in part, “On behalf of our taxpayers, Upper Pottsgrove Township pursued this temporary injunction to halt the unsustainable drain on public funds until a permanent resolution could be reached,” according to the statement. “Despite this setback, the township remains committed to seeking a permanent injunction through the court of common pleas. Officials emphasized their dual commitment to honoring transparency obligations under the law and safeguarding taxpayer resources from potential misuse.”

In a more extensive unsigned response posted in The Upper Pottsgrove Journal — an on-line site operated by Commissioners Trace Slinkerd,  Hank LLewellyn and Read — those commissioners wrote “not only has the weaponization of the RTK law been an issue in Upper Pottsgrove Township but across the state as well. Senate Bill 790 which provides these fixes cleared the Senate State Government Committee on June 3, 2025, and will now go to the full body.”

That bill is sponsored by Sen. Cris Dush, R-25th Dist., whose district represents Cameron, Clinton, Elk, McKean, Potter and Part of Jefferson and Centre Counties. It was voted out of committee by a 9-2 vote on June 3. Local State Sen. Katie Muth, D-44th Dist., provided one of the two no votes, but two other Democrats on the committee, one from Bucks County and the other from Philadelphia, along with all the Republicans, voted to move the bill to the floor for consideration by the full Senate.

The bill would need to pass muster with the Democratically-controlled House of Representatives and be signed by Governor Josh Shapiro, also a Democrat, to becomes law.

Should this occur, according to the text of the bill as it now stands, it would amend the Right to Know law adopted in 2008 to add a section regarding “vexatious requesters.”

The bill would allow a municipality to file an appeal with the Office of Open Records to prevent Right to Know requests from those people based on the number of requests, complexity or those requests that “impose an unreasonable burden on the agency” or demonstrate “conduct, including communications in writing or otherwise documented, expressing intent to harass, annoy, frustrate or burden an agency,” or “evidence of repetitive requests for identical or substantially similar records previously provided or denied with finality.” according to the text of the bill. 

The bill text currently exempts students and political candidates from these restrictions and provides for a number of actions, appeals and even for mediation.

The article posted in The Upper Pottsgrove Journal noted that “To date, responding to these requests has cost the township tens of thousands of dollars in legal and administrative expenses — with more expected.”

It seems likely the same will be true of pursuing this legal action in the court of common pleas.