A fight over public records could threaten novel approach to broadband in rural Pennsylvania

Board meetings of the Southern Alleghenies (PA) Planning & Development Commission tended to be straightforward. No one had spoken during the public comment period in years. But in January 2022, the calm was broken when Richard Latker, president of a local civic group, read out a lengthy statement that lambasted officials for a lack of transparency. Latker said the regional commission was spending thousands of dollars to fight the release of basic information and accused officials of misleading state regulators. His allegations took direct aim at one of the commission’s most prized initiatives: a nonprofit launched to spearhead broadband expansion across Bedford, Blair, Cambria, Fulton, Huntingdon, and Somerset (PA) Counties. Officials in the Southern Alleghenies region created the organization in part to sidestep an obscure provision in state law that puts roadblocks in the way of local governments trying to build their own broadband networks. But having developed a solution for one problem, those local officials now find themselves accused of creating another.