Springdale Borough, beset by controversy over a data center proposal and police collaboration with ICE, has not released basic financial and police records despite five state Office of Open Records decisions ordering their disclosure. Pittsburgh’s Public Source requested the records in May and June and this week filed a complaint in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas seeking to compel their release.
The records requested include recent borough budgets, Police Chief Derek Dayoub’s employment contract and his reports to council, a police roster and documents related to collaboration with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The requests were part of Public Source’s reporting for “ICE, a data center and a town divided,” an August investigation examining residents’ responses to the Dynamo DC development proposal, the record of the borough’s police chief and officials’ treatment of people who questioned their decisions.
In the months since publication, residents have pressed for changes in police leadership, borough officials have imposed new restrictions on recording public meetings, and the data center proposal has moved into another stage of review. Among the developments:
- Scores of community members and advocates — some for the environment, others for labor — weighed in on the Dynamo DC data center proposal at an Oct. 14 virtual meeting and an Oct. 28 in-person meeting run by Allegheny County.
- The borough council on Sept. 15 passed a resolution restricting the use of cameras and other recording devices at its meetings.
- An online petition calling for the resignation of Police Chief Derek Dayoub has logged more than 500 signatures. Dayoub declined to resign amid statements of support from council members. Some of the chief’s critics have received blowback in the community, in one case generating criminal charges.
- Borough police have continued to collaborate with ICE.
Public Source reached out to the borough’s mayor, council president and vice president, solicitor and newly hired communications consultant repeatedly, but did not receive responses to questions.
Here’s where those issues stand, beginning with the public records the borough has yet to release.
Borough fails to release documents
The borough missed five deadlines set by the state Office of Open Records to comply with, or appeal, OOR decisions, and officials didn’t respond to efforts by the newsroom to urge them to release the records without litigation. Public Source filed a complaint in mandamus, which asks the court to compel officials to perform a required duty. A court ruling against the borough could include monetary costs.
A Public Source investigation
ICE, A DATA CENTER &
A TOWN DIVIDED
In Springdale, a small borough near Pittsburgh, national battles over ICE and data centers collide with local questions about policing, power and accountability.
In May and June, Public Source invoked the Right-to-Know Law to ask Springdale for:
- Recent borough budgets
- Dayoub’s employment contract and any extensions
- The chief’s written reports to council for the months March through June
- The police department roster
- Records related to collaboration with ICE, including any payments made by the federal immigration agency to the borough.
The borough only responded substantively to one of the requests, denying access to records on its interactions with ICE on the grounds that “local agencies are not required to provide federal records directly in response” to a request under the state law. Public Source appealed, and the borough did not file a response to that appeal.
The state OOR ruled that “the public has an interest in and a right to know the financial affairs of the borough,” and ordered that Springdale officials provide those records by Sept. 12.
The borough did not comply.
Public Source also filed appeals of the four other unfulfilled requests, and the state OOR issued final determinations in all cases that the news outlet had a right to the requested records. The borough again ignored the OOR’s deadlines.
Public Source Editor-in-Chief Halle Stockton wrote to borough officials on Sept. 22, ensuring they were aware of the decisions, and requesting prompt compliance to avoid litigation. Managing Editor Rich Lord followed up by phone and email on Oct. 15. Neither received responses.
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The newsroom has a right to the requested records, according to the complaint written by Adam Tragone, a First Amendment lawyer at the Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic who represents journalists in Western Pennsylvania.
“The borough’s repeated failure to respond or participate in OOR appeals, together with its alleged noncompliance after the final determinations, warrants consideration of bad faith,” Tragone wrote.
The newsroom seeks a court order for production of the records, and asks the court to compel the borough to pay attorney fees, court costs and any civil penalties that are warranted.
Last test for data center underway
The virtual half of Allegheny County’s review of the data center proposal drew around 80 sign-ins and scores of public speakers. Leaders of unions representing construction workers lauded the project as a source of around one million hours of paid work, while residents of the borough and neighboring communities were largely opposed.
How ICE and a data center turned a small Pittsburgh suburb into a civic battleground
“I’m terrified of the proposed data center, and the adverse damage, if approved, it will cause our community,” said Veronica Wanamaker, 66, a lifetime Springdale resident living near the proposed site. She noted the effect data centers can have on electricity demand and the constant sound that could affect wildlife and people.
A few speakers counterbalanced the hoped-for jobs with fears that AI, which is enabled by data centers, threatens human quality of life. “I hope there are other opportunities for construction workers and people who need good jobs for their families to make money, [that] don’t involve data center development,” said Liana Gable, of Hazelwood.
Thursday’s in-person hearing mirrored the virtual gathering’s heavy opposition to the data center proposal. The developer’s representatives said they’ve provided the county with responses to 97 concerns and comments about the proposal.
People can submit written comments until Nov. 30. The county must decide on the development plan by Jan. 27.
Council restrictions on meetings questioned
New council rules approved in September bar:
- Most use of recording devices while “moving about the Council Chambers”
- The use of cameras with removable lenses except from a “recording area” in the back of the chamber
- Recording of “private conversations” that occur in the chamber before or after public meetings.
When introducing the resolution, Springdale solicitor Craig Alexander referred to the time limit of public comment as another rule they put in place in accordance with the state Sunshine Law, which governs public access to meetings.
“We know that video taping, picture taking is something that is absolutely permitted under the Sunshine Law. The problem has been in recent months, not today coincidentally, there has been a lot of moving around the room with video cameras and long lens cameras and the borough council has determined that that is a big distraction in trying to get the business accomplished at our regular borough meetings …” Alexander said. “The resolution does not preclude that at all but it does put rules and regulations in place.”
Video: How Springdale data center moved Allegheny Valley residents
Pennsylvania’s Sunshine Act guarantees that any attendee to a public meeting has “the right to use recording devices to record all the proceedings,” while giving government agencies leeway to impose “reasonable rules.” Court decisions have confirmed that cameras are recording devices, according to attorney Mickey Osterreicher of the National Press Photographers Association.
Any rules need to be focused on maintaining order, and typically include keeping aisles clear and preventing “genuinely disruptive conduct,” according to Osterreicher. If movement around the chamber is distracting, he said, it’s unclear why council didn’t restrict movement rather than the act of recording, he noted. Designated camera areas aren’t “automatically unlawful,” he said, but they should be minimally restrictive.
The restrictions are especially concerning, he said, coming after extensive reporting on the borough. “Those circumstances do not alone establish retaliation, but officials cannot lawfully use meeting rules to punish journalists for coverage they dislike,” according to Osterreicher.
Divide over chief endures
The dispute over Dayoub’s leadership has extended beyond the petition and council meetings, with two of his critics allegedly receiving threatening text messages.
On Sept. 25, Allegheny County Police filed a criminal complaint against Harmar resident Michael A. Masci, 42, alleging harassment of two critics of Dayoub. According to the complaint, Masci texted obscene threats to the couple, including at least one reference to controversy over the borough’s policing of public comment at council meetings. Masci is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on four misdemeanor harassment charges on Nov. 18.
Springdale police chief says he has ‘overwhelming support’ amid petition for resignation
Reached by email, Masci wrote that he didn’t send the messages, saying that a person unknown to him used his email account. He said he wasn’t “involved in that childish Springdale drama” and called it “an embarrassment to our justice system that charges were even filed.”
A petition seeking Dayoub’s removal as chief was posted online two days after Public Source detailed repeated allegations of excessive force, harassment and false charges — most ending out of court — made against Dayoub over the course of almost two decades.
The petition garnered more than 500 signatures, but Dayoub and council members dismissed it. Dayoub said during a speech at a borough meeting he would not leave, the petition meant “absolutely nothing” and claimed “overwhelming support” from community members.
Amy Sarno, part of a group of activists that circulated the petition, said the petition achieved some results, although its core demands are unmet.
“If nothing else, it brought attention to the fact that there are things going on here that a lot of people aren’t happy about,” said Sarno, a member of the Allegheny Valley School District board. “There’s always good in speaking out. Even when you don’t get the end result, these things are a marathon, not a sprint.”
Police, ICE still partnering
The borough’s 11-month-old agreement to partner with ICE on immigration enforcement appears to be ongoing. On Sept. 10, for instance, police and ICE were together at Pittsburgh and Orchard streets, taking several people from a work van into custody.
Since then, according to two close observers of immigration enforcement in the borough, there has been at least one known immigration-related arrest. Meanwhile advocates for immigrants continue to work with the organization Frontline Dignity to recruit volunteers for neighborhood patrols and to support families of people who have been detained.
The collaboration between the department and the agency became a lightning rod after the February detention of Randy Cordova Flores, who was released in June.
Neither top borough officials nor Dayoub responded to a question about the ICE collaboration’s effect on the community.
Rich Lord is the managing editor of Pittsburgh’s Public Source and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.
Jamie Wiggan, Stephanie Strasburg, Charlie Wolfson and Mia Hollie contributed.
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