The (Harrisburg) Patriot-News, April 24

Office of Open Records: Illinois woman gets state post

BY JAN MURPHY
Of The Patriot-News

A woman who has been in the vanguard of Illinois' movement to open up state and local governments there is coming to Pennsylvania to take up a similar challenge.

Terry Mutchler, 42, was selected by Gov. Ed Rendell to serve a six-year term as the first executive director of the state's new Office of Open Records. She is to start in early June and earn a $120,000 annual salary.

Mutchler, an East Stroudsburg native and Penn State University graduate, began her career in journalism at The Morning Call in Allentown before going to work for The Associated Press, first in Harrisburg and later in bureaus in New Jersey, Illinois and Alaska.

She then went to the John Marshall School of Law in Chicago to earn her law degree and worked at a Chicago law firm in its media law group before being tapped by the Illinois attorney general to serve as that state's first public access counselor.

She was one of six candidates that the Rendell administration interviewed for the job of helping Pennsylvanians gain access to government information.

The office was created by the state's revamped open records law.

State Department of Community and Economic Development Secretary Dennis Yablonsky said Mutchler "has the right combination of knowledge and experience to spearhead the implementation of this important initiative in Pennsylvania. Her work in running the open records office in Illinois will be invaluable."

Some excerpts from a telephone interview with Mutchler in her Illinois office on Wednesday, April 23:

Q: What about this job appealed to you?

"There are several things. ... Coming to Pennsylvania, of course, it's my home state. My mother is still living there. My father is deceased. ... But I'm going to enjoy being closer to her again.

"In taking a look at this law and the structure and what I'm going to be able to do ... , it's clear to me this law creates a way in which the executive director of the Office of Open Records can have very close and a free hand to ensure that citizens are getting information to which they are entitled. ... I am passionate about open government. I'm passionate about open records."

Q: What is your sense of the office's independence from the Rendell administration?

"In speaking with Governor Rendell and the secretary of the Department of Community and Economic Development ... I am able to tell, even at this juncture, that this administration ... is committed to having the executive director of the Office of Open Records be independent, to go out to create this from the ground up in the structure of the legislation and to open up government in Pennsylvania. That to me is thrilling. Are there going to be challenges? Yes. Am I going to make mistakes? No doubt. But I can assure the citizens of Pennsylvania that if and when I make an error, it's going to be on the side of openness."

Q: What do you think of Pennsylvania's new open records law?

"I think it's a good law. There are obviously things I may have done differently. The five-day turnaround [to respond to requests for information] ... is a tight time frame. ... I think that if I'm sitting in a local government right now, I'm thinking: Uh-oh what's this train noise I hear? My goal will be to go and meet with local government officials and say to everybody: 'Take a deep breath. This is how this law is supposed to work. This is what the design is. And here's how I can be helpful to you to help your local government agency work this through.'"

Q: What is your plan of action for putting this new law into practice?

"My first goal is to meet people, to go meet the legislative leaders, to go talk with them, to hear what their concerns are, to go to local governments, talk with them, to meet with citizen groups. I want everything in the bowl. Let's see what this thing is so I can start sifting it apart, not only to be sure it runs smoothly and citizens are getting the information they need, but to do a little bit deeper work and find out why these problems exist and to identify ways in which we can smooth them out.

"Now, I could be completely overestimating my ability to do this, but I've been through this process here in Illinois."

Q: What has your experience in Illinois taught you about who uses the state's open records officer?

"Eighty-five percent of people who come to us for help are citizens. The next largest group is public officials, and the third group is members of the media."

Q: Some citizens may wonder how this new office impacts their lives. What would you say to them?

"I think the Office of Open Records in the state of Pennsylvania at a minimum will be a comfort to citizens to say, 'Oh wow, we have a place we can go to to help us.' At a maximum, how I think it will affect the everyday taxpayer is for them to know there is someone that they have hired that's passionate about open government and will look at these records objectively and fairly. ... The only way in which you can have a strong, solid, effective government is for it to be an open government."

Q: How do you measure this office's success?

"I hope, after six years, I'll say I worked incredibly hard for citizens, that I had a helluva lot of laughs along the way, and that Pennsylvania becomes a premier state that people looked to as this is how open government works. This is how Right to Know should be in place. And that's my hope. It's a lofty hope."

[BACK TO HEADLINES & DEADLINES HOME PAGE]